Free Republic

Hartford (WTNH) _ A long forgotten flag was discovered at the Connecticut Historical Society and it dates back to the days of President Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Susan Schoelwer from the Connecticut Historical Society says a handwritten note accompanied the flag inside a simple black box. "You know we have a lot of stuff with a lot of little notes on them. Some of them are true and some of them are not," Susan said. In this case the note claims that the tattered American flag was present at a traumatic event in American history and the hand of a great...

BOSTIC - For a man with "Honest Abe" as his nickname, there are plenty of Abraham Lincoln stories that may be anything but. Lincoln did not compose the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope. No one really knows whether the store clerk Lincoln walked six miles to return 3 cents he overcharged. And his wife wasn't a Confederate spy. Now this small town in Western North Carolina is pressing its own claim: Lincoln was a Tar Heel. According to a tale that locals swear is true: The 16th president of the United States wasn't born in Kentucky, as...

Over the last few months, celebrations for Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday have drawn attention to the Kentucky native's life and his legacy as president. But the 200-year anniversary of another Kentucky president's birth, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, is receiving mixed reviews. "I'll say it this way - winners write history," said Ron Bryant, a Lexington historian writing a book on Davis. "We need heroes, we need villains. Lincoln became a hero and Davis a villain." Davis was born in what is now Todd County, Ky., in 1808, one year before Lincoln. Davis served as the only president of the 11...

WASHINGTON - Heading toward the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, President Bush on Sunday celebrated the nation's 16th president as a man of steadfast convictions and honorable ideals. "It's fitting that we honor Abe Lincoln," Bush said in the ornate East Room of the White House. "Of all the successors to George Washington, none had a bigger impact on the presidency and the country." Bush spoke in early tribute to the 199th anniversary of Lincoln's birthday. Lincoln was born Feb 12, 1809. On Tuesday, first lady Laura Bush will speak at Lincoln's birthplace of Hodgenville, Ky., as part of the...

Rep. Ron Paul told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" Sunday that the war was a mistake – the American Civil War. "Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war…. [President Abraham Lincoln] did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic," Paul said.

Ron Paul appeared on "Meet the Press" over the weekend, and gave voice to a sentiment scarcely heard in American politics. He claimed that the Civil War was unnecessary, and that Lincoln "never should have gone to war" to stop slavery. A better approach would have been for the federal government to simply purchase freedom for all of the slaves in the country. Watch Ron Paul on Meet the Press [YouTube]: Of course, such a program sounds more than a little strange coming from a man who is so mistrustful of government that he wants to abolish the Department of...

In 1861, free institutions seemed poised to carry all before them. In Russia, Tsar Alexander II emancipated 22 million serfs. In Germany, lawmakers dedicated to free constitutional principles prepared to assert civilian control over Prussia’s feudal military caste. In America, Abraham Lincoln entered the White House pledged to a revolutionary policy of excluding human bondage from the nation’s territories. The new machinery of freedom, though Anglo-American in design, was universal in scope. At its core was the idea, as yet imperfectly realized, that all human beings possess a fundamental dignity. This was a truth that, Abraham Lincoln believed, was “applicable...

Sally Field wins an Emmy and suddenly everyone wants to 'really, really like her' again. Fresh off her controversial appearance on the Emmys, when she won for Brothers & Sisters, Sally Field has been cast as Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of Abraham Lincoln, in Steven Spielberg's long-awaited biopic of one of the most important leaders of all time. Liam Neeson has already been cast as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln bases on Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Steven Spielberg's Lincoln will center on the life of the leader in the time leading...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Copperhead Chronicle Al Benson, Jr. Articles Guess What Folks--Secesson Wasn't Treason by Al Benson Jr. More and more of late I have been reading articles dealing with certain black racist groups that claim to have the best interests of average black folks at heart (they really don't). It seems these organizations can't take time to address the problems of black crime in the black community or of single-parent families in the black community in any meaningful way. It's much more lucrative for them (and it gets more press coverage) if they spend their time and resources attacking Confederate...

CHICAGO - Artists, sculptors and photographers knew Abraham Lincoln's face had a good side. Now it's confirmed by science. Laser scans of two life masks, made from plaster casts of Lincoln's face, reveal the 16th president's unusual degree of facial asymmetry, according to a new study. The left side of Lincoln's face was much smaller than the right, an aberration called cranial facial microsomia. The defect joins a long list of ailments — including smallpox, heart illness and depression — that modern doctors have diagnosed in Lincoln. Read MORE.

I just read an interesting if flawed book, Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War. Some fascinating tidbits in it. For example, Morse didn't invent much in the way of telegraph hardware, which is attributable to others. What he did do was software - and the entrepreneurship. Prior experimenters had used clunky codes for encoding messages; Morse used the count of each letter which was in a printer's array of type to tell him which letters to make the easiest to encode. Thus, "e," the most-used letter, is encoded...

President Abraham Lincoln and President George W. Bush. They were two different men at two different times facing the same two problems: War and hate. President Lincoln was hated mostly because of the Civil War. President Bush is hated mostly because of the war in Iraq. Both wars were fought to overthrow oppression. The Civil War succeeded in abolishing slavery and the war in Iraq succeeded in overthrowing tyrannical oppression of Saddam Hussein. There is one main difference between the two wars: The number of casualties. The Civil War lasted five years with casualties in the 600,000 range, almost equaling...

When we clicked yesterday morning on the Drudge Report's headline "Republican Congressmen Take It To Bush," it took us to a story in the New York Times about how Republican moderates had gone to warn President Bush that their support for the war was faltering. The Times quoted Congressman LaHood of Illinois as saying, "It was a tough meeting in terms of people being as frank as they possibly could about their districts and their feelings about where the American people are on the war." At that, we reached for Lloyd Wendt's history of the Chicago Tribune, which begins with...

IN SEPTEMBER 1862, Union troops were soundly defeated by Confederate forces led by Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee at Manassas Junction, Virginia. The North called it the Second Battle of Bull Run. President Abraham Lincoln's somber mood afterward was recorded in a diary entry by Attorney General Edward Bates, who wrote that Lincoln "seemed wrung by the bitterest anguish--said he felt almost ready to hang himself." Soon afterward Lincoln wrote out a private musing on a small piece of lined paper. He sought to discern the will of God among the cacophony of voices all around him after news...

The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission was created by Congress to inform the public about the impact Abraham Lincoln had on the development of our nation, and to find the best possible ways to honor his accomplishments. The President, the Senate and the House of Representatives appointed a fifteen-member commission to commemorate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln and to emphasize the contribution of his thoughts and ideals to America and the world. The official public Bicentennial Commemoration launches February 2008 and closes February 2010, with the climax of the Commemoration taking place on February 12, 2009, the 200th anniversary of...

In the delicate days before the Civil War, Congress proposed a 13th amendment that would have prohibited Washington from interfering with slavery in states where it existed. It was one of many last-ditch efforts to avert war and stem the tide of southern states seceding. The amendment, known as the "ghost amendment," was signed by President James Buchanan and left for the new president, Abraham Lincoln, to send to governors for their legislatures to ratify. Lincoln dutifully did so, sending North Carolina's copy to Gov. John Ellis with a cover letter that didn't endorse or oppose the constitutional amendment. Last...

While all the anti war cowards were screaming for Bush to cut and run and our willing accomplice main stream media acting like kids in a candy store. I heard someone on talk radio say that during the civil war Lincoln had his media detracters thrown in the bottom of a war ship until the war was over. But I can't find any facts on-line to back it up. Does any one know where I might go to find information on this? I mentioned this to a (left wing co-worker) and he thinks I made it up. I sure would...

The July issue of Time Magazine, a "Special Issue" as they are selling it, has several segments on President Abraham Lincoln one of which is penned by the Junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama. In this issue the articles ruminate on how Lincoln has been understood or misunderstood by the "ages" to which Secretary of War and one time Lincoln rival, Edwin M. Stanton, remanded him upon the President's assassination. There are 5 articles on the Civil War leader, one superfluous one on Lincoln impersonators and Obama's piece, which is termed a "viewpoint". Along with an excellent chart called "Slavery...