Free Republic

Today is the anniversary of the birth of America’s great or greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are created equal. In 1858 Lincoln attained national prominence in the Republican Party as the result of the contest for the Senate seat held by Stephen Douglas. It was Lincoln’s losing...

Green Bay Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy has a monthly column on the team website where he answers questions from fans and shareholders. It generally appears to be softball questions like any fun events planned for the shareholders meeting and the Paul McCartney concert was awesome, but for some reason this month's edition also featured an absolutely wild letter from a shareholder named Marilyn. She does not waste time getting to her point. Via Packers.com: A question from Marilyn, a longtime Packer fan and shareholder: "Out of the 11 players drafted by the Packers in the 2022 NFL Draft...

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on Thursday called for a portrait of the late Illinois U.S. Sen. Stephen Douglas in the Capitol’s House chamber to be removed and replaced with one of former President Barack Obama, whom he called “a more fitting representation of the modern-day Democratic Party.” Madigan also called for the removal of statues on the Illinois State Capitol grounds of both Douglas, a defender of slavery, and Pierre Menard, the first lieutenant governor and a slaveholder. The speaker’s call to take down the portrait and statues is part of a movement to remove memorials of historical figures...

See the Lincoln-Douglas debate #6. Stephen Douglas: We then adopted a free State Constitution, as we had a right to do. In this State we have declared that a negro shall not be a citizen, and we have also declared that he shall not be a slave. We had a right to adopt that policy. Missouri has just as good a right to adopt the other policy. I am now speaking of rights under the Constitution, and not of moral or religious rights. I do not discuss the morals of the people of Missouri, but let them settle that matter...

On Oct. 12, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln must have breathed a bit easier. Not because the war was over — it would last another six months. Not because he had been re-elected — the election remained nearly a month away. And not because Gen. William T. Sherman had begun his decisive march through Georgia — the general was still holding Atlanta. While much remained unsettled, Lincoln’s achievements as president seemed more secure that autumn day because the president learned that his old nemesis Roger B. Taney, the Maryland-born chief justice of the Supreme Court, had died. Ever since Taney had...

This installment continues by exposing how James Buchanan worked diligently to spread and defend slavery. Democrat President James Buchanan supported the Compromise of 1850 which required the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, forbidding the spread of slavery west of Missouri. He condemned Republican David Wilmot’s bill, known as The Wilmot Proviso, which would have forbidden the expansion of slavery to territory gained in the Mexican War. The Wilmot Proviso was defeated by Southern Democrats. Buchanan was an author of the Ostend Manifesto. The Ostend Manifesto urged the annexation of Cuba by force and expansion of slavery into the territory. This...

You could call it a debate in the style of America’s most famous series of oratorical confrontations — but only if Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas had addressed each other from comfy, high-backed armchairs. And spectators had been willing to shell out at least $200. Georgia’s two Republican candidates for president, friends who have watched each other’s back during much of the early campaign, will go toe to toe Saturday evening in a two-man debate in the backyard of a third contender, Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Last spring, when a Texas tea party group conceived of it , the 90-minute...

Third Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Jonesboro, Illinois September 15, 1858 MR. DOUGLAS' SPEECH. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I appear before you today in pursuance of a previous notice, and have made arrangements with Mr. Lincoln to divide time, and discuss with him the leading political topics that now agitate the country. Prior to 1854 this country was divided into two great political parties known as Whig and Democratic. These parties differed from each other on certain questions which were then deemed to be important to the best interests of the Republic. Whig and Democrats differed about a bank, the...

As the season of presidential politics 2012 unfolds, I’m struck by similarities between today and the tumultuous period in our history that led up to the election of Abraham Lincoln and then on to the Civil War. So much so that I’m finding it a little eerie that this year we are observing the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. No, I am certainly not predicting, God forbid, that today’s divisions and tensions will lead to brother taking up arms against brother. But profound differences divide us today, as was the case in the 1850′s. The difference...

Has the Democratic Party ever enacted a law as atrocious as its government takeover of the American people’s healthcare? Has the Democratic Party ever enacted a law so unpopular? Yes and Yes. In 1854, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency. Their top priority was to repeal the Missouri Compromise prohibition of slavery in the northern territories. The author of this infamous legislation, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was Stephen Douglas, a Democrat Senator from Illinois and owner of a slave plantation in Mississippi. Senator Douglas claimed the law would be a final solution to the slavery question, so that...

You reply, “Of course not, they’re both long dead.” But this may actually happen, with different participants. The seven Lincoln-Douglas debates in Illinois in 1858 set the pattern that live debates are the best way for Americans to judge among candidates. Just one person in D.C. represents solely Western Carolina: your 11th District Congressman. You deserve a debate among the candidates. The official candidates for the 11th (alphabetically) are: John Armor, Michael Morgan, Heath Shuler, and Charles Taylor. Normally, civic organizations don’t invite candidates to speak, to avoid favoring one over the others. But, there’s a non-partisan opportunity here. Get...

At first, this attorney-cum-supercop only wanted to make America safer, but in short order, this bureaucrat re-enacted every Machiavellian nightmare while transforming a backwater investigative office into the free world’s most effective police force. He became the closest thing America has ever known to an emperor and managed to die before his empire came crashing down around him. The tragedy of his life can be seen in his contradictions: a gay man who persecuted homosexuals; his undeniable love of country getting consumed by his thirst for power; his desire to enforce the law giving way to his paranoid domestic-espionage activities...