Free Republic

Before when free-soil men invoked the right of revolution in defense of their political rights, proslavery men condemned them for defying the legitimate government. But proslavery men feared the loss of their right to own slaves as much as free soilers feared the loss of the right to exclude slavery. At Hickory Point, [Kansas] a squabble over land claims ignited these political quarrels. A settler named Franklin M. Coleman had been squatting on land abandoned by some Hoosiers, who subsequently sold the claim to Jacob Branson, another Hoosier. In late 1854, when Branson informed Coleman of his legal claim and...

Putting U.S. troops on the ground in Syria to counter the Islamic State and take on Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime would be a mistake, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Wednesday."I don't believe the answer is sending boots on the ground to Syria," the Republican candidate for president told reporters in Washington. "President Obama - and I think far too many Republicans - are eager to get us in the middle of an internecine civil war in Syria. We don't have a dog in that fight."Assad is a "monster" who has murdered women and children and gassed his own citizens,...

Syria's army and rebels were locked in talks Wednesday night to reach a 15-day ceasefire in the Eastern Ghouta region east of the capital, a monitor and a security source told AFP. These are the first known talks aiming for a truce in the region and are likely being brokered by Russian or Iranian mediators, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. If agreement is reached, "a ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta would begin at 6:00 am (0400 GMT) Thursday and will last 15 days," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said. A senior Syrian security source told AFP "talks are ongoing...

Tennessee State Representative Glen Casada tells Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that he wants Republican Governor Bill Haslam to call out the National Guard to prevent additional Syrian refugees from entering the state. Further, Casada tells Breitbart News the 30 Syrian refugees settled in the state last year need to be re-vetted and sent back to ICE if they don't pass muster. "THE ISIS headquarters said we are embedding terrorists in refugees and they’re coming to the U.S. The FBI director today said that we may have missed those that are associated with ISIS or are ISIS trained that...

Pro-government forces in Syria clashed with Islamic State fighters around a military air base in the north of the country on Tuesday as they tried to break the jihadists' siege on the facility, a group monitoring the war said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said forces fighting on the side of the Syrian government, including Lebanese and Iranian militiamen, were trying to secure Kweires air base, which has been under attack for nearly two years.

Germany now is somewhere at the edge of anarchy and sliding towards civil war, or to become a "banana republic without any government," says Hansjoerg Mueller of the Alternative for Germany party.

The Civil War is, as Shelby Foote noted, at the crossroads of our being. Looked at one way, it marked the end of a long struggle against slavery and the beginning of a long one for civil rights and racial equality. Looked at another, it marked the end of limited government and the beginning of the encroaching, ever-present Leviathan that exists today. These memories can be both in sync and in conflict. After all, it was the deployment of strong government in the form of a dominant army and the passage of federal amendments that played a large role in...

On November 2, The Daily Beast pointed to recent statements from President Obama and Hillary Clinton regarding the implementation of Australian-style gun confiscation and suggested “civil war could erupt on American soil” if any administration actually tried to confiscate privately owned firearms. The Daily Beast theoretically agreed that “confiscation on a massive scale” may be “the only way to solve American gun violence,” but they pointed out that it was not realistic and suggested Hillary risks causing irreparable divisions by talking about confiscation then mocking gun owners as conspiracy theorists waiting for “black helicopters” to come take their guns away....

"My answer is simple: I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria." If you like your boots-free Syria, you can keep your boots-free Syria. The White House reversed course today and announced that the Obama administration would be deploying special forces troops and military advisers to Syria. The new White House policy directly contradicts multiple promises personally made by President Barack Obama in 2013 that he would not put combat boots on the ground in Syria.

The change in rhetoric (and apparent shift in strategy) comes just days after the US seemingly prepared the public for what might be coming by releasing helmet cam footage of what Washington says was a raid on an ISIS prison by Delta Force (accompanied by the Peshmerga). 70 prisoners were allegedly freed although not before the US suffered its first combat death in Iraq since 2011. The timing of the video is suspect, to say the least. It came just days after Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joe Dunford visited Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi in an effort to dissuade Baghdad...

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has confirmed that the Turkish military has attacked Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) said Turkey shot at its forces in the town of Tal Abyad on Sunday. The YPG has been a key ally of the US in fighting the so-called Islamic State (IS) group in Syria. Turkey fears advances by the YPG near its Syrian border could fuel separatist sentiments amongst Kurds in Turkey. The attacks come amid increasing tensions in Turkey ahead of elections. "We said the [YPG-aligned Democratic Union Party] PYD will not go west of...

Representative Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) 58% (R-WI) 2014 gun control vote could present another obstacle to this path to the Speakership of the House. It is certainly one more aspect of Ryan’s past that caused Gun Owners of America to warn that a Ryan Speakership would simply be “Boehner on Steroids.” Ryan’s 2014 gun control vote came amid the emotional outpouring that followed Elliot Rodger’s May 23, 2014, Santa Barbara attack. Although Rodger passed a background check, registered his guns with the state–as is required in California–and only used ammunition magazines of 10 round or less, Ryan voted for Representative...

Russia has increased the number of daily airstrikes in Syria several times as it coordinates them with the Syrian army's offensive. Over the past week, Russia destroyed 363 ISIL installations, as the Syrian army continues offensives around the country to combat terrorist groups. Russia's presence in Syria led to a change in the focus of the US-led coalition's strikes against ISIL. The US continues minor airstrikes in Syria, generally using drones and striking near the Iraqi and Turkish borders. However, the drone use has created issues of air control, as Russian aircraft are often forced to fly in close proximity...

Qatar, a major supporter of rebels in Syria’s civil war, suggested it could intervene militarily following Russia’s intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad but said it still preferred a political solution to the crisis. The comments by Qatar’s foreign minister, made in a CNN interview on Wednesday, drew a swift reply from Assad’s government with a senior official warning that Damascus would respond harshly to such “direct aggression”. Gulf Arab backers of Syrian rebels such as Qatar have been unsettled by Russia’s three-week-old air strike campaign that has allowed Assad’s forces to wrest back some territory to help secure...

Turkey is ready to accept a political transition in Syria in which President Bashar al-Assad stays in symbolic power for six months before leaving office, and is discussing the plan with Western allies, two senior government officials said on Tuesday. NATO member Turkey has long been one of Assad’s fiercest critics, insisting that no lasting peace can be achieved in Syria without his removal from power. “Work on a plan for Assad’s departure is under way ... (Assad) can stay for six months and we accept that because there will be a guarantee of his departure,” one of the officials...

RUSSIA’S power play in Syria appears to be paying off with the superpower making inroads against Islamic State and other extremist groups, leaving its American rivals looking ineffective and highlighting US failures in the region. When Russia decided to involve itself in the war in Syria, American officials accused it of “pouring gasoline on the fire” in Syria and being “unprofessional” for only giving the US an hour’s notice of its intention to launch air strikes. But just weeks later, Russia’s provocative move seems to be paying off. Professor Clive Williams of Macquarie University’s Centre for Policing, Intelligence and Counter...

Rebels battling the Syrian army and its allies near Aleppo said on Monday they had received new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad since the start of a major government offensive last week. The rebels from three Free Syrian Army-affiliated groups contacted by Reuters said new supplies had arrived in response to the attack by the army, which is backed up by Russian air strikes and on the ground by Iranian fighters and Lebanon's Hezbollah. The "Free Syrian Army" refers to a loose affiliation of groups fighting Assad that do not operate with a...

It’s hard to determine which is more surprising: the British aching to send troops and materiel to aid the Confederacy during the Civil War or that the first “Special Relationship” was between the U.S. and Russia against the British. Both of these facts are true and for the latter negating the former, we can thank one Cassius Marcellus Clay. Clay was more than just a namesake for the greatest boxer of all time. He was also a politician, representative, officer in the Mexican War and Civil War, abolitionist, and ambassador with a pedigree in badassery. This man once frightened an...

U.S. military cargo planes gave 50 tons of ammunition to rebel groups overnight in northern Syria, using an air drop of 112 pallets as the first step in the Obama Administration's urgent effort to find new ways to support those groups. Details of the air mission over Syria were confirmed by a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly because the details have not yet been formally announced.

On the summit of Stone Mountain, yards away from where Ku Klux Klansmen once burned giant crosses, just above and beyond the behemoth carving of three Confederate heroes, state authorities have agreed to erect a monument to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Specifically, an elevated tower — featuring a replica of the Liberty Bell — would celebrate the single line in the civil rights martyr’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech that makes reference to the 825-foot-tall hunk of granite: “Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.” (snip) Gov. Nathan Deal has green-lighted the projects, and a formal...