Free Republic

Do the citizens of the United States have an absolute right to, by force of arms if necessary, overthrow a government which has, with malicious deliberation, become destructive of those ideals of liberty granted by God and guaranteed by instruments such as the Constitution of the Unites States? Clearly the Founders believed in the existence of such a right. There could be no more axiomatic example than the American Revolution itself! And though these men warned against pursuing such a course for “light and transient causes”, rightly observing that “…mankind are more disposed to suffer…than right themselves by abolishing forms...

Smithsonian Books will release Thomas Jefferson’s cut-and-paste Bible in a never-before-seen color edition in November. Formally titled 'The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth', The Jefferson Bible was an attempt by the famed founding father to “separate the gold from the dross” and remove and extract what he felt was most pertinent of Christ’s teachings from the Bible. Using a razor, Jefferson literally cut and arranged selected verses from the books of Matthew, Luke, and John and created a single narrative, devoid of any divinity, miracles, prophecy, resurrection, and other elements he found unnecessary and misinterpreted by the Four...

Why it matters that our democracy trust in GodFATHER ROBERT BARRONI was pleased to see that the United States Supreme Court recently dismissed a suit brought by Michael Newdow, a Sacramento man who wanted to remove the phrase “In God We Trust” from the nation’s coins and paper currency, as well as from the fronts of our public buildings. The tired argument that the gentleman brought forward was that this custom somehow violates the first amendment guarantee that the government shall make no law either establishing an official religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion in the United...

HOPE YOU'LL TAKE TIME TO READ THIS... Thomas Jefferson was a very remarkable man who started learning very early in life and never stopped. At 5, began studying under his cousins tutor. At 9, studied Latin, Greek and French. At 14, studied classical literature and additional languages. At 16, entered the College of William and Mary. At 19, studied Law for 5 years starting under George Wythe. At 23, started his own law practice. At 25, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. At 31, wrote the widely circulated "Summary View of the Rights of British America " and...

April 13th is the birthday of one of America’s founding fathers. He was born in 1743 in Virginia. Jefferson was one of the original writers of ‘The Declaration of Independence’ which was intended to free America of Britain’s sovereignty over the colonies and thus founding the United States of America. Aside from ‘The Constitution’, ‘The Declaration of Independence’ is one of the most important documents of American history. After a year of war the American colonist were growing weary of the many taxes levied on the colonist to pay for Britain’s wars and not being represented in their political system....

That whole up-is-down, black-is-white thing that the Left’s got going does leave a sane person wondering if they’re all off their meds. How else to explain professional blowhard Michael Moore’s appearance on Colbert this week, where he offered up several big heapin’ helpings of crazy. Bet you didn't realize Professor Moore was a scholar and expert on all things Founding Father-related? Or that he and Thomas Jefferson had so much in common? Check it out: Quite a compendium of misleading statements, outright lies, and utter nonsense, no? The coup de grace has got to be that mangling of the legacy...

Last November, in response to protest, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery removed a video installation depicting ants crawling over a small crucifix. This coming November, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will exhibit a cut-and-paste Bible of a mere 86 pages. Were it the work of David Wojnarowicz (the artist behind the crucifix video) or Andres Serrano (of "Piss Christ" fame), this Bible would doubtless stir up a hornet's nest. But in fact, it was created by Thomas Jefferson. During the election of 1800, Jefferson was denounced as a "howling atheist" and "a confirmed infidel" known for "vilifying the...

By literally cutting and pasting biblical passages demonstrating the life and lessons of Jesus Christ from several Bibles, Thomas Jefferson put together a book that he titled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” during his retirement in 1820. The former president’s finished product would become known to historians as the Jefferson Bible. "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" (CNN) Nearly 200 years later, conservationists at the National Museum of American History are working to carefully preserve the 86-page book and preparing to put it on display in November. Over time, the book’s brittle paper has become...

Dozens of Thomas Jefferson's books, some including handwritten notes from the nation's third president, have been found in the rare books collection at Washington University in St. Louis. Now, historians are poring through the 69 newly discovered books and five others the school already knew about, and librarians are searching the collection for more volumes that may have belonged to the founding father. Even if no other Jefferson-owned books are found, the school's collection of 74 books is the third largest in the nation after the Library of Congress and the University of Virginia.

"To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts...

Thomas Jefferson was extremely vocal regarding his fear of the aggregation of power in any branch of the government. As such, he viewed the role of the Supreme Court as being one of restricting the growth of any government agency that went beyond its Constitutional authority. He certainly did not envision a court that spent its time waving a metaphorical magic wand over the expansion of faux Constitutional power. That is, I suspect he would have smiled upon the Court’s belatedly ensuring that a black citizen’s voting rights were secure but looked askance at most of the rest of the...

Thomas Jefferson's mountaintop home is teaming up with a local brewery to launch a new ale inspired by the past. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation says it's working with Starr Hill Brewery to offer Monticello Reserve Ale, inspired by what was produced and consumed regularly at Monticello.

A Church I Never Knew About http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlfEdJNn15E

The Failing of Progressive Thinkers “ It cannot be denied that we have among us a sect who believe that to contain whatever is perfect in human institutions; that the members of this sect have, many of them, name & offices which stand high in the estimation of our countrymen. I still rely that the great mass of our community is untainted with these heresies, as is it’s head. On this I build my hope that we have not labored in vain; and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason, “you said in your...

When Thomas Jefferson was fighting against the economic policies of Alexander Hamilton, he had his own newspaper at his disposal. The publisher of The National Gazette was Mr. Philip Freneau whose competancy for prose is shown below. A nostrum is a medicine whose effectiveness is unproved and whose ingredients are usually secret; a quack remedy. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt, provided enough of it can be got and it be medicated with the proper ingredients. If by good fortune a debt be ready at hand, the most is to be made of it. Stretch it and...

Founder’s Quotes – Jefferson and Hamilton on Citizens Duty to be Armed “The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves in all cases to which they think themselves competent, or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.” Thomas Jefferson (letter to John Cartwright, 1824) ”If the representatives of the people betray...

The debate over ObamaCare brings to mind an old dispute exploding national debt brings to mind a defining conflict between two of America's founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Their feud--nicely recounted in John Ferling's A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic--has parallels with today's debate, but with an ironic twist.Hamilton, our first Secretary of the Treasury, was a nationalist who had an expansive view of the powers granted to the nascent federal government under the newly-ratified Constitution. A favorite of President George Washington (in whose staff he served during the war of independence),...

*** (When I make this mark ***, I am noting a place a Blue GOP centrist sub/urbanite is apt to disagree and hang up. Instead, I invite you to comment and/or disagree, or at least reconsider and continue reading. I promise not to say anything petty about your side…or tell a Mitch joke…but do try to put your whole mind to this. I’ll admit you’re my betters if you’ll admit you have a real short attention span.) The Hook I was at a party Friday with an old friend and long time Virginia Republican Party insider. A strong conservative when...

When I was a boy my family had a Time-Life book on the mind which featured a chart of the presumed IQs of famous dead men. Goethe, as I recall, led the pack, at 210. But the Founding Fathers did very well: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington all scored over 150. As the Fourth of July approaches, we'd do well to remember that the Founders were a smart lot, with few gentleman's C's among them. Yet they didn't know everything. They were strongest in law, political philosophy and history--all essential subjects for revolutionaries and statesmen. But another subject,...

Virginia Sen. Jim Webb recently wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal titled "Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege" that really brought home the foolishness of pining for a "conversation on race." The headline itself was a device meant to drive conservatives to cheering, liberals to howling, and the whole of them to page-clicking and reading. Webb's piece was about affirmative action, and his argument was much more nuanced than the headline — sympathetic to the argument for historical redress for African-Americans, unsympathetic to hazy appeals to diversity, appealing for more discussion of a seemingly invisible class of...

For decades, there have been those who have not only coveted political power, but have gained that power and have, through a variety of cunning devises, used not only the legislative, but the executive and judicial bodies of our government to accomplish a system of the centralization of power that now affects every area in the lives of the People of this country. This pernicious system of centralization is stamped with the indelible character of a growing aggravated oppression.

Free Speech and the Constitution are under attack. These research notes will help us gain historic perspective. The Sedition Act of 1798. A. The Philosophical Difference Hamilton and John Adams were the driving force behind the philosophy of power. They wanted strong military, powerful industry, and strong central government -- the Federalist Party. Thomas Jefferson led the opposing view -- lean military budget, weak central government, and an agricultural society that was considered to be more virtuous. [For the most part, I like America to be strong. But how much power should one political party have?] Democrats claim that Thomas...

to say “I am free” is to stand up for yourself, to take the first step to freedom. America’s independent stance began in earnest and in union with a few simple words: Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved. The resolution, written by Virginia representative Richard Henry Lee and accepted by a vote of colonial representatives, made history. As John...

At this time of the year, while most U.S. citizens are contemplating U.S. independence and the Declaration of Independence, I ask myself why, in 19 years of teaching in the New York Public Schools, I have not once heard the students gathered to sing in any assembly or forum "America the Beautiful," " God Bless America," or "My Country ‘Tis of Thee?"  The National Anthem has only been sung once a year at the graduation ceremonies.  This serious omission of patriotic fervor can be attributed to the leftist influence on the school system.  Most leftists believe the Declaration of Independence...

I recently did a radio interview with BJ Janice Peak-Graham about my book, Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton. She said that as she was reading the book, she was struck with the realization that I was, in fact, writing about her life. She had been a Clinton appointee, and it had never occurred to her that her experience was part of the political history of that time period. Watching the coverage of the Obama family in the White House, one can’t help but feel a certain media giddiness to be able to report on all these new “firsts.”...

[CAPITALISMMAGAZINE.COM] In April 2001, a "blue ribbon" commission of highly accomplished and nationally recognized scholars reported its findings after a year-long investigation of the evidence for a sexual relationship between Thomas Jefferson and his house slave, Sally Hemings. The thirteen-member Scholars Commission agreed unanimously that the allegation of such a relationship is "by no means proven" and regretted that "public confusion about the 1998 DNA testing and other evidence has misled many people into believing that the issue is closed." With the exception of one of the thirteen commission members, the scholars' "individual conclusions range from serious skepticism about the ...

Nation: Thomas Jefferson's kin to vote on inclusion of slave family ROANOKE, Va. (May 4, 2002 4:53 p.m. EDT) - Ever since a DNA test showed a male in Thomas Jefferson's family - possibly the third president himself - fathered slave Sally Hemings' son Eston, the family has squabbled over how to treat their newfound cousins. For four years, it's been a family feud like no other. Descendants have hired their own public relations consultants, sponsored independent research and placed gag orders on members of their exclusive Monticello Association. This weekend, the group will finally decide whether to offer Hemings'...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Preservation scientists at the Library of Congress have discovered that Thomas Jefferson, even in the act of declaring independence from England, had trouble breaking free from monarchial rule. In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote the word "subjects," when he referred to the American public. He then erased that word and replaced it with "citizens," a term he used frequently throughout the final draft.

"Subjects." That's what Thomas Jefferson first wrote in an early draft of the Declaration of Independence to describe the people of the 13 colonies. But in a moment when history took a sharp turn, Jefferson sought quite methodically to expunge the word, to wipe it out of existence and write over it. Many words were crossed out and replaced in the draft, but only one was obliterated. Over the smudge, Jefferson then wrote the word "citizens." No longer subjects to the crown, the colonists became something different: a people whose allegiance was to one another, not to a faraway monarch....

Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five; Who remembers that famous day and year. Other than recalling a fragment of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s wonderful, if historically inaccurate poem, many Americans, myself included, do not know much more about Paul Revere, the man, and his ride through Middlesex county to alert the countryside on the movement, in force, of British Regulars in the direction of Lexington.The British aimed to snatch John Hancock and Sam Adams before moving on to Concord to seize a large cache of...

John Hancock: A Neglected American Hero July 3rd, 2010 by Dr. Gary Scott Smith As we celebrate the Fourth of July this year, our attention will once again turn to such luminaries as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Samuel Adams. However, another founder who made substantial contributions to American independence, John Hancock, is typically overlooked and underappreciated. Although he served as the first president of the Continental Congress, did more than any other man except Robert Morris to finance the American Revolution, presided over the Massachusetts convention that ratified the Constitution, and played a major role...

WASHINGTON - Library of Congress officials say Thomas Jefferson made a Freudian slip while penning a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. In an early draft of the document, which is kept under lock and key in one of the Library's vaults, Jefferson referred to the American population as "subjects," then replaced it with the word "citizens," a term he used frequently throughout the final draft.

Congress approves the Declaration of Independence, brilliant scene from John Adams mini-series. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrvpZxMfKaU&feature=player_embedded

“IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that...

Quill pen in hand, Thomas Jefferson invited the King's noose when he set out to write what his fellow founders at first thought would be a mundane legal document: a declaration of independence from the British crown. But despite a preamble that became a paean to individual liberty that has rivaled the Magna Carta in the breadth of its global impact, Mr. Jefferson apparently committed a slip of the pen. To usher in the Fourth of July weekend, the Library of Congress revealed hard evidence from high-resolution spectral imaging that Jefferson, on the third page of a "rough draught," wiped...

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Earl Taylor has spent 31 years teaching that "the Founding Fathers have answers to nearly every problem we have in America today." Only in recent months has he found so many eager students. On a recent Saturday, he held the rapt attention of 70 of them. The eight-hour seminar held at a roadside inn here was one of half a dozen "Making of America" sessions nationwide that day, all sponsored by a little-known organization based in Idaho. Two years ago, Taylor, president of the National Center for Constitutional Studies, made about 35 trips to speak to small...

"Resolved, That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government . . . . and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. . . . that the government created by this compact [the Constitution for the United States] was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; . . . . that...

Free Speech: President Obama, while addressing college graduates, condemns our access to new media as a subversion of democracy. Is the iPad a threat to democracy or exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind? At Hampton University in Virginia on Sunday, the president lamented that in an age of text messaging, the Internet and the iPad, information and its unfettered exchange had become a diversion that was putting a strain on democracy. We are not making this up. The "24/7 media environment," he told the students, "bombards us with all kinds of comments and exposes us to all kinds of...

AUTHORS' NOTE: Recently, a federal judge ruled that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. The following article was written over a decade ago, after months of research. The essay details how the term "separation of church and state" has been intentionally misinterpreted by judicial activists. This has led to the false conception of the constitutional framers' intent regarding religion's role in government and, for proof, the authors voluminously quote from the Founding Fathers themselves, including a reference to a private letter then-President Thomas Jefferson wrote using that phrase. Since the 1940's, the term "separation of church and state" has...

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism,

To William Branch Giles, Governor of Virginia Monticello, December 26, 1825 Dear Sir, I wrote you a letter yesterday, of which you will be free to make what use you please. This will contain matters not intended for the public eye. I see, as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power....

(March 12) -- Widely regarded as one of the most important of all the founding fathers of the United States, Thomas Jefferson received a demotion of sorts Friday thanks to the Texas Board of Education. The board voted to enact new teaching standards for history and social studies that will alter which material gets included in school textbooks. It decided to drop Jefferson from a world history section devoted to great political thinkers. According to Texas Freedom Network, a group that opposes many of the changes put in place by the Board of Education, the original curriculum asked students to...

Last week we were all introduced to the “Slaughter Solution;” a procedural method that could be used to get around the requirements of the Constitution to pass a bill without actually voting on it. I have read a number or articles both defending and condemning the move. For me any attack on the Constitution needs to met with a swift and overwhelming response. Most of us picked up the phone and called our representatives, and expressed our deep concerns to some nameless staffer who took down our information and promised to relay our frustrations to our congressman or congresswoman. I...

Over the course of American history, there has been no greater conflict of visions than that between Thomas Jefferson’s voluntary republic, founded on the natural right of peaceful secession, and Abraham Lincoln’s permanent empire, founded on the violent denial of that same right. That these two men somehow shared a common commitment to liberty is a lie so monstrous and so absurd that its pervasiveness in popular culture utterly defies logic. After all, Jefferson stated unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence that, at any point, it may become necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected...

The Federal Reserve is unconstitutional and must be abolished, returning the powers it has usurped to the Legislative Branch where those powers irrevocably were granted by the People of the United States. ...Any argument that the Federal Reserve was created under the "necessary and proper" clause is absurd. The entire bleat of the Federal Reserve against being audited is to preserve its "independence" in monetary policy! That is a blatant admission that it is a law unto itself, a sovereign that has usurped control of, stolen, the entire wealth of this nation.

MASSACHUSETTS FACED a crisis in 1778. In the midst of the Revolutionary War, some 4,000 British and Hessian prisoners were living in miserable conditions in camps around Boston. Rumors surged that a British force would try to free them by force. The cry went up: get these prisoners out of Massachusetts. Enter Thomas Jefferson and his Virginia neighbors. Thinking like a current-day congressman, Jefferson regarded the prisoners as an economic opportunity for the remote valley near his home at Monticello. The prison camp would pump money into his hometown of Charlottesville, along with much-needed craftsmen and laborers. It would be...

"It has been said the greatest volume of sheer brainpower in one place occurred when Jefferson dined alone..." John Kennedy HOW DID JEFFERSON KNOW?????? Especially read the last quote from 1802. And pass these on to your children and grandchildren!! When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe. Thomas Jefferson The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. Thomas Jefferson It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as...

Thomas Jefferson said a number of memorable things about the young country of America and what it truly meant to be an American, but the above sentiment holds a special meaning. It speaks not to our laws or freedoms, but to the noble character and human spirit that lies at the heart of our laws and freedoms. Jefferson is telling us that morality and honor should be cherished and preserved, for without them all else is lost. Sadly, today Jefferson’s words fall on deaf ears in our halls of power, and the key to turning this country around lies in...

The First Amendment of our Constitution states not the words “separation of church and state,” but rather the following: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… How did this become construed to mean “separation of church and state”? By a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, in which he states: I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a...