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On the river boat “River Queen”, in Hampton Roads, President Abraham Lincoln and Sec of State. William Seward met with Confederate VP Alexander Stevens, Asst Sec of War John Campbell Sen Robert Hunter These men met to discuss a possible end to almost 4 years of bloody Civil War. The Hampton Roads Peace Conference lasted about 4 hours and produced no visible results. A detailed account of this event can be found at: https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-hampton-roads-peace-conference.html

Although he actually died at 7:30 the following morning, today is the anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) on 14 April 1865, only five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Lincoln was very fond of the theater, and that evening, he and Mrs. Lincoln - likely in a celebratory mood because of the end of the Civil War - attended a performance of the comedy, Our American Cousin, by English playwright Tom Taylor at Ford's Theater on 10th Street NW in Washington. There, following the intermission, actor and Southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth managed to gain access...

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...

On this day in 1859, Senator William Seward (R-NY) said: "The Democratic party is inextricably committed to the designs of the slaveholders... The history of the Democratic Party commits it to the policy of slavery. It has been the Democratic Party, and no other agency, which has carried that policy up to its present alarming culmination... Such is the Democratic Party... The government of the United States, under the conduct of the Democratic Party, has been all that time surrendering one plain and castle after another to slavery." The more things change...

The John McCain camp informed us yesterday that it is mathematically impossible for Mike Huckabee to win the nomination. What they won't say is that McCain stands a good chance of losing the nomination as long as Huckabee stays in the race. Huckabee only has to win half of the remaining delegates to block McCain from the nomination. And even if he falls a few short of that, many of the delegates in McCain's column will be unbound delegates who may in fact vote for anyone they choose on the first ballot... The McCain camp thinks the "mathematically impossible" rhetorical...