Free Republic

August 2, 1776, is one of the most important but least celebrated days in American history when 56 members of the Second Continental Congress started signing the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Officially, the Congress declared its freedom from Great Britain on July 2, 1776, when it approved a resolution in a unanimous vote. After voting on independence on July 2, the group needed to draft a document explaining the move to the public. It had been proposed in draft form by the Committee of Five (John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson) and it took...

As Will Ferrell’s character Ron Burgundy said in the 2004 movie “Anchorman”: “Leave the mothers out of this. That’s not necessary.” Antifa apparently didn’t get the memo, and went after a monument dedicated to the mother of our first president, George Washington, over the weekend. Leftists have been attempting to tear down monuments and rewrite history for years. But they are no longer satisfied with attacking great historical figures. They now feel the need to turn their attention toward the mother of one of those historical figures. How despicable. The Mary Washington Monument in Virginia was vandalized Saturday night. The...

A tired canard is surfacing again in the era of wokery: “Estimates suggest that only about a third of the colonial population actively supported independence.” This misconception originates from misreading an 1815 letter written by John Adams. Adams referenced Americans’ attitudes toward the French, not the American Revolution. English tyrannies weren’t welcome here by 1776. Straightforward facts tell the story, beginning with the Revolution’s impetus, the Stamp Act, effective Nov. 1, 1765, long before Boston’s December 1773 Tea Party. It was indeed a relatively modest tax. What enraged colonists was its purpose; namely, subsidizing British continental wars that had stretched...

MT. VERNON, VA — In a massive scandal upending centuries of historical beliefs, researchers have discovered that George Washington signed the vast majority of his orders with an auto-feather device. "After careful study and research of early American history, we've discovered a device called the 'Auto-Feather' that George Washington used to sign pretty much every one of his presidential orders," historian Fineas T. Barlow told the press. "We have even learned he used the auto-feather device to issue military orders and even to sign letters to his wife." Historians discovered the auto-feather while looking through an old storage cupboard in...

If it be true that it takes a great man to interpret the life of a great man then Bushrod Washington made no mistake in the selection of a biographer. For Marshall, under the influence of Washington, came to be nearly as great a man as the character whose life and achievement held his deepest thought for nearly a quarter of a century. . . . Marshall's sympathetic understanding of his subject, his firsthand knowledge of events with his remarkable powers of expression qualified him to produce the masterpiece that has come down to us.

Located on Lake Champlain in northeastern New York, Fort Ticonderoga served as a key point of access to both Canada and the Hudson River Valley during the French and Indian War. On May 10, 1775, Benedict Arnold joined Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont in a dawn attack on the fort, surprising and capturing the sleeping British garrison. Although it was a small-scale conflict, the Battle of Fort Ticonderoga was the first American victory of the Revolutionary War, and would give the Continental Army much-needed artillery to be used in future battles. In 1755, French settlers in...

Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, “If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,— One if by land, and two if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country-folk to be up...

Today, we celebrate the 250th Anniversary of Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” Speech, which he delivered in the Virginia House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775. A speech had vision, courage, and foresight and should be ringing from the lips of statesmen and patriots today. Patrick Henry was a man of deep faith, so his remarks appeal to spiritual courage and trust in God as the foundation for fighting against tyranny. Here are a few segments that are as applicable today as they were when spoken 250 years ago, particularly as we engage in what can...

The White House on X: "250 years ago, Patrick Henry spoke the words that still remain etched in every American heart: “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death!” We honor his legacy, we invoke his courage, and we summon the spirit of 1776 to bring about a new era of Restoration, Renewal, Confidence & Pride.

The Sons of Liberty flag is very meaningful to us, as it’s the flag that inspired the backdrop of our logo. Its origins go back to 1765, when a secretive group of patriots known as “the Loyal Nine” was formed – the group behind the original Boston Tea Party. The flag was then known as “the Rebellious Stripes” and it was banned by the British king, the highest endorsement the Crown could give.

I'm having a promotion for a book I wrote and published (under pen name Lyle Wesley) on Amazon. The title is A Night that Saved Virginia. It is historical fiction based on a true event; a British attempt to capture Thomas Jefferson at Monticello when he was Governor of Virginia. The E-Book version is free on Amazon until March 18th. The Amazon link is https://a.co/d/4mDuwJF. Best Regards and Happy Sunday!

Graduation day at Navy Officer Candidate School was special. I felt more honored by that achievement than graduating from college, because then all Navy officer programs were meritocracies. The feeling was not diminished until I arrived at the Westchester County where I saw men with two or more stripes and two of more rows of ribbons, including the Silver Star and Bronze Star. That is when I knew I was in for a serious commitment.Fifty years later, after reading a library of eighteenth history books, I realized the gravity of commitment implied by the oath I said on that graduation...

A letter written by George Washington, providing rare understanding of his confidence in regular Americans to fight and win the revolutionary war, has been put up for sale on Presidents Day. The first US president penned the document as leader of the Continental Army in 1777, shortly after British forces ransacked a vital military supply depot in Danbury, Connecticut – a devastating action that fellow general Samuel Parsons wrote him was “an event very alarming to the country”. The handwritten reply, hidden from public view for decades in a private collection in New England, shows that Washington refused to consider...

Seventeen seventy-two, 1773, 1774, 1775 all came and went, and they had no idea they were living in capital-R Revolutionary times...until they did. They didn’t know we would come to revere them, these farmers, these doctors, these lawyers and tradesmen, as R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N-A-R-I-E-S. No man knows that until it’s over. And even then, there’s no guarantee. History has to write that page, and only the fullness of time can confer such titles. I’ve long thought about how our forebears knew there was increasing trouble afoot (as we do now) but really didn’t know how big, how consequential those troubles were (as...

[23 Dec. 1783]Mr. PRESIDENT The great events on which my resignation depended having at length taken place; I have now the honor of offering my sincere Congratulations to Congress and of presenting myself before them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the Service of my Country. Happy in the confirmation of our Independence and Sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a respectable Nation, I resign with satisfaction the Appointment I accepted with diffidence. A diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so arduous...

Without them, there would be no United States of America: The Founding Fathers, a group of predominantly wealthy plantation owners and businessmen, united 13 disparate colonies, fought for independence from Britain and penned a series of influential governing documents that steer the country to this day. All the Founding Fathers, including the first four U.S. presidents, at one point considered themselves British subjects. But they revolted against the restrictive rule of King George III—outlining their grievances in the Declaration of Independence, a powerful (albeit incomplete) call for freedom and equality—and won a stunning military victory over what was then the...

The strength of the American Revolution was its respect for the past and its privileging of legal precedent and the rights of Englishman over any ideologies. The same rights they claimed were guaranteed in the royal charters and documents of incorporation that each colony created at their inception. Before some of the charters were signed in America and after others, the English Bill of Rights of 1689 restated the common law rights of Englishmen. Yet, that document isn’t the origin of the rights fought for by British Americans. The Petition of Right of 1628 reaffirmed the controls upon the royal...

Excavation Represents an Unprecedented Discovery of Pre-Revolutionary War Artifacts and Biological Matter **************************************************************** Archaeologists at George Washington’s Mount Vernon have unearthed an astounding 35 glass bottles from the 18th century in five storage pits in the Mansion cellar of the nation’s first president. Of the 35 bottles, 29 are intact and contain perfectly preserved cherries and berries, likely gooseberries or currants. The contents of each bottle have been carefully extracted, are under refrigeration at Mount Vernon, and will undergo scientific analysis. The bottles are slowly drying in the Mount Vernon archaeology lab and will be sent off-site for conservation. This...

“To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” — George Mason of Virginia In April of 1775, the British Royal Military Governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, sent 800 British Army Regulars, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, on a preemptive raid to seize guns from American patriots at Lexington and Concord.

During the first six decades of the eighteenth century, the American colonies were mostly allowed to govern themselves. In exchange, they loyally fought for Great Britain in imperial wars against the French and Spanish. But in 1763, after the British and Americans won the French and Indian War, King George III began working to eliminate American self-government. The succeeding years saw a series of political crises provoked by the king and parliament. What turned the political dispute into a war was arms confiscation at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775.