Free Republic

ailhouse records describing the incarceration of dozens of participants of Shays’ Rebellion sat for decades in a cardboard box at the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office before state archivists discovered them. The leatherbound register of prisoners, written on yellowed pages in looping cursive, described the charges of treason, sedition and taking up arms against the state leveled against 35 participants of the rebellion that ran from the summer of 1786 to early 1787. The sheriff’s office announced the discovery this week. Shays’ Rebellion was one of the inciting incidents that led to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution that created a...

President Trump said on Monday that he would invoke the Insurrection Act in Portland if necessary. “Portland is on fire. Portland’s been on fire for years, and that’s not so much saving it. We have to save something else, because I think that’s all insurrection,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House. “I really think that’s criminal insurrection.” Mr. Trump said he would do what “was necessary” if it came down to invoking the Insurrection Act in Portland. “So far it hasn’t been necessary. But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason. If I had to enact it,...

This evening, President Trump is ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States. No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate. We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion. It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops

Ammon Bundy emerged from a small brick building at the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge shortly after 11am. He wouldn't say how many protestors were present at the site of the occupied federal complex, but fewer than 20 people were visible Sunday afternoon. The leader of the occupation spoke in cool, calm tones as he explained why and other self-described militiamen broke into and took over the complex Saturday...... Protestor LaVoy Finicum, an Arizona rancher, said they're being careful not to damage the buildings or property. He claimed the protestors accessed the buildings after they found a set...

After the American War for Independence, both Britain and the thirteen newly freed states felt the need to centralize their political power. Many in Congress, fearing that Britain or another European nation would take advantage of the fragile American governments, deeply in debt and without any means of protection, sought to form a stronger union than the one established under the Articles of Confederation. This shift from “thirteen independent sovereignties”[i] to united states has gone down into our popular mythos as an integral part of the American progression towards liberty, so it is not surprising that few people today are...

"If three years ago any person had told me that at this day, I should see such a formidable rebellion against the laws & constitutions of our own making as now appears I should have thought him a bedlamite—a fit subject for a mad house." —George Washington to Henry Knox, on the subject of Shays Rebellion, February 3, 1787 You have to give Captain Daniel Shays this: When he launched his armed sedition against lawful authority, he at least was invited in. Overnight on Saturday, in an obscure corner of the Oregon wilderness, and contrary to the law, and in...

     WINGLESS, BLOODSUCKING AND PARASITIC: MEET THE FLEA PARTY! October 12, 2011So far, the only major accomplishment of the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters is that it has finally put an end to their previous initiative, "Occupy Our Mothers' Basements." Oddly enough for such a respectable-looking group -- a mixture of adolescents looking for a cause, public sector union members, drug dealers, criminals, teenage runaways, people who have been at every protest since the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, people 95 percent of whosehair is concentrated in their ponytails, Andrea Dworkin look-alikes and other average Democrats -- they can't even explain...

Many commentators have questioned whether the Iraqi elections, scheduled for 30 January, 2004, should be delayed. Such comments from anyone at the UN should be rejected out of hand. After all, the UN is dominated by dictatorships who fear free elections the way vampires fear necklaces of garlic. Plus, the UN is on a long, unrelieved run of anti-Americanism. Whatever the US favors, UN bureaucrats will instinctively oppose. But some of the groundswell to delay the Iraqi election comes from the likes of the New York Times, who ought to know better. This is perhaps the tenth time I have...

This is the story of Shays' Rebellion, which I contend is the most important falsified event in American history. It is a story of speculation in government bonds, political intrigue, propaganda, and systematic deception. But it is ultimately the story of John Hancock's big toe. As recently as 2001, only one historian knew that the event that is acknowledged as key political event in the success of promoters of the Constitution was not what it appeared to be. That lone historian, Leonard Richards, had not yet finished his revolutionary book, Shays' Rebellion: The American Revolution's Final Battle. In 2002, the...