Free Republic

In his 1861 "Cornerstone Speech", Vice President of the Confederacy Alexander H. Stephens said the following: But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other — though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock...

The Constitution gives absolutely no authority, none, to the federal government to dictate marriage policy to the states. *** *** When the Obergefell case was decided by the Supreme Court, its ruling legally applied only to the plaintiffs before it, as is true in any case before any court. The concept of “judicial review” - in which the Court, and not Congress, gets to decide what the law is - is not found in the Constitution anywhere. It was invented out of the ether by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803 as a way for the Court to grant dictatorial...

The human cost of the War of 1812 was dramatic. Some 35,000 people were killed, wounded or missing at the end of the war. York (now Toronto), Niagara (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) and Washington, D.C. were torched. Elsewhere, homes and properties were looted and damaged and family lives were thrown into chaos. The borders between British North America and the United States might not have changed when the fighting stopped — the old lines were reconfirmed in the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war on December 24, 1814. But once the treaty was signed, there wasn’t simply a return to the...

The UK-based Daily Telegraph has reported that Iranian assets are being funneled back to Teheran using financial intermediaries in Dubai. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly authorized the transfers as fears rise that Iranian financial institutions may come under European Union sanctions. The Iranian media has reported that the move caused tension between the president and the governor of Iran's central bank, Tahmaseb Mazaheri, and that Mazaheri may resign as a result. Mazaheri took over the leadership of the central bank in 2007, as he replaced outgoing governor Ibrahim Sheibani who resigned due to Ahmadinejad's moves to influence the central bank's...