Free Republic

Timeless words...written 149 years ago but could have been penned yesterday, but not by the current Imposter-in-Chief: "Insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and...

McLEAN, Va. – Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has inspired Americans for generations, but consider his jarring remarks in 1862 to a White House audience of free blacks, urging them to leave the U.S. and settle in Central America. "For the sake of your race, you should sacrifice something of your present comfort for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the white people," Lincoln said, promoting his idea of colonization: resettling blacks in foreign countries on the belief that whites and blacks could not coexist in the same nation.

Abraham Lincoln’s greatest love was politics, but his intellectual passion was for what the 19th century called “political economy” — the way economics and politics intersected in society and government. According to his law partner William Herndon, Lincoln “liked political economy, the study of it,” and Shelby Cullom, who practiced law beside Lincoln in Springfield, Ill. (and later crafted the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887), thought that “theoretically . . . on political economy he was great.” Although Lincoln’s angular, shambling appearance gave him the look of anything but a student of economics — one contemporary said he resembled “a...

When he mentions that his daddy fought for the Confederacy, H.V. Booth gets more than a few raised eyebrows. “Really? Really?” Booth says, mimicking people’s incredulity. “They just can’t believe it.” His father, Isham Johnson Booth, a country boy from north of Athens, played a bit part in the Civil War. But it was a grim role, the memory of which never left him and was something he rarely spoke about. He was a guard at Andersonville, the prisoner-of-war camp in south-central Georgia that has become synonymous with suffering. Booth, who turns 92 this month, is the end of a...

This article gives another perspective on liberals, libertarians and conservatives. The history both Lincoln and Sherman has been written by the victors and beyond reproach. Do we want to restore honor in this country? Can we restore honor by bringing up subjects over 100 years old? Comments are encouraged. Randy's Right aka Randy Dye NC Freedom The American Lenin by L. Neil Smith lneil@lneilsmith.org It’s harder and harder these days to tell a liberal from a conservative — given the former category’s increasingly blatant hostility toward the First Amendment, and the latter’s prissy new disdain for the Second Amendment —...

Barack Obama is America's second wartime president from Illinois. Depictions of the first are, of course, on every penny and $5 bill. The new book, "Obama's Wars" by Bob Woodward, offers troubling contrasts between the way Abraham Lincoln learned to handle a war and President Obama's role in overseeing U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. President Lincoln, whose military experience amounted to a brief and undistinguished appearance in a minor battle against Native Americans, learned about wartime leadership on the job. From the attack on Fort Sumter in 1861 through the Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863, he led...

I'm planning on reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln for a nice non-fiction change of pace. As you can imagine, there's so many Lincoln biographies out there I wouldn't know where to begin! Certainly, I would like to begin with the cream of the crop, but which one would it be? Even if I do a search in Amazon.com for Abraham Lincoln biographies sorted by five-star average customer reviews, a truckload of titles pop out.Here's just a few of those titles: Lincoln and His Admirals by Craig L. Symonds Lincoln's Sword: The Presidency and the Power of Words (Vintage) by...

I would also remind any Conservative that America is in the hole it is today because we have forgotten so much of our history. We are right to demand that our representatives remember the founding documents, we are right to demand these documents be taught in school. Again, how is studying the Confederacy any less important? Is not the essential question right now, on so many issues, NOT States rights? And what was the fight from 1861-65 over again? Yes, States rights.

PAWTUCKET — It was 150 years ago this month that then-presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln made a train journey from Providence to Woonsocket where he delivered one of his most significant speeches to a crowd of 1,500. On May 15, the Blackstone Valley Tourism Council is making it possible to experience some of the excitement of that historic campaign visit with a special event. The 150th Abraham Lincoln Train Tour will recreate this journey that was made in 1860 by America's 16th president. Participants will ride on an excursion car on the Providence & Worcester Railroad, the same railway line that...

Hi FRiends, I have two brothers who I love very much, they’re young and libertarian Ron Paul supporters, sigh. We get along and I’m hoping that one day they’ll come back to conservatism, but they have bought into a theory that I don’t think makes much sense: Abe Lincoln was a dictator. There are many websites dedicated to this nonsense you can Google "Abe Lincoln dictator" and get some weird stuff, if you want to check it out. I need your help in busting this myth are there any books I can read on this subject to dispel this stuff?...

Ron Paul: Why didn’t the north just buy the south’s slaves and free them that way? Getting down to the last two questions here…. Most people consider Abe Lincoln to be one of our greatest presidents, if not the greatest president we’ve ever had. Would you agree with that sentiment and why or why not? No, I don’t think he was one of our greatest presidents. I mean, he was determined to fight a bloody civil war, which many have argued could have been avoided. For 1/100 the cost of the war, plus 600 thousand lives, enough money would have...

Did anyone here see tonight's Glenn Beck TV show segment with the author (Lehrman?) of Lincoln at Peoria?

What I think about secession basically is that it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, but a dangerous pursuit to advocate publicly. Janet Napolitano and the alphabet soup guys do not take kindly to the notion of freedom in any way, and for the precise reason that Abraham Lincoln did not. When asked why he didn’t just let the South go, Lincoln exploded in a rage, “Let the South go? LET THE SOUTH GO? How, then, should I fill my coffers?” Documented historical fact. Look it up for yourselves. Winners write history and the North/Leftists have had nearly 160...

LEXINGTON, Va. (AP) -- Americans must pay attention to challenges to democracy today just as Abraham Lincoln did by fiercely opposing slavery, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a conference on the 16th president's legacy Friday night. "We are part of something far greater than ourselves," Thomas told more than 300 people at Washington and Lee University. Many in Lincoln's time didn't realize the threat that slavery posed to the principles on which the nation was founded, Thomas said. "What a miserable job he had. He wasn't popular," Thomas said, "but he did what was right." Thomas received a standing...

Today is the 146th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Gettysburg. A few months later, as the National Cemetery there was being organized, an invitation was extended to President Lincoln to give "a few appropriate remarks" for the dedication in November, 1863. Lincoln would not be the main speaker, that honor would go to Edward Everett, one of the foremost orators of the day. Everett spoke for almost two hours and, for the most part, his remarks are lost to the ages. Lincoln's "few appropriate remarks" however, are some of the most familiar wods in American History. To...

One of the greatest misconceptions of American history is that the Civil War was fought over slavery. Those who subscribe to this belief see President Abraham Lincoln as the benevolent leader who made unimaginable sacrifices in human blood to wipe out America’s greatest sin. While the human sacrifice is indisputable and the sin was monumental, the war’s purpose was not to free blacks from the shackles of bondage. Rather, the Civil War was fought with one purpose in mind: To preserve the Union at all costs. And, to put it in Lincoln’s terms, with no ifs, ands, or buts. You’d...

PHILADELPHIA – John Sotos has a theory about why Abraham Lincoln was so tall, why he appeared to have lumps on his lips and even why he had gastrointestinal problems. The 16th president, he contends, had a rare genetic disorder — one that would likely have left him dead of cancer within a year had he not been assassinated. And his bid to prove his theory has posed an ethical and scientific dilemma for a small Philadelphia museum in the year that marks the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.

For nearly 150 years, Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch has been rumored to carry a secret message, supposedly written by an Irish immigrant and watchmaker named Jonathan Dillon. Dillon, working in a D.C. watch repair shop in 1861, told family members that he -- by incredible happenstance -- had been repairing Lincoln's watch when news came that Fort Sumter had been attacked in South Carolina. It was the opening salvo of what became the Civil War. Dillon told his children (and, half a century later, a reporter for the New York Times) that he opened the watch's inner workings and scrawled...

Though Lincoln has already been canonized by those who settle for partial histories, in the words of John Adams, "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." In our steadfast adherence to The Patriot Post's motto, Veritas Vos Liberabit ("the truth shall set you free"), and our mission to advocate for the restoration of constitutional limits on government, I am compelled to challenge our 16th president's iconic standing. Lincoln is credited with being the greatest constitutional leader in history, having "preserved...

I don't know what they teach in U.S. history classes today. But back in the middle of the last century, when I was in elementary school, there was absolutely no question about how we were to regard Abraham Lincoln. We were taught to feel a reverence bordering on awe for Honest Abe, the Great Emancipator, the eloquent martyr who saved the Republic. We were required to memorize the Gettysburg Address. And if we were lucky enough to join a field trip to our nation's capitol, one of the most significant events was our visit to the Lincoln Memorial. (A few...

When the American Civil War began, president Abraham Lincoln was far less prepared for the task of commander in chief than his Southern adversary. Jefferson Davis had graduated from West Point (in the lowest third of his class, to be sure), commanded a regiment that fought intrepidly at Buena Vista in the Mexican War and served as secretary of war in the Franklin Pierce administration from 1853 to 1857.

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...