Free Republic

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...