Free Republic

The story of the Democrats (available in its entirety free see details below) continues by exposing the Franklin Pierce Administration. The Kansas-Nebraska Act During Pierce’s administration the question of slavery again roiled the nation. The issue always flared up at times when the admission of new states was being considered. Both pro and anti-slavery factions worked hard to win their point. Probably the most important piece of legislation dealing with the question was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. At its core this bill was an attempt to mollify the pro slavery Democrats who wanted as many new slave states as...

As the season of presidential politics 2012 unfolds, I’m struck by similarities between today and the tumultuous period in our history that led up to the election of Abraham Lincoln and then on to the Civil War. So much so that I’m finding it a little eerie that this year we are observing the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. No, I am certainly not predicting, God forbid, that today’s divisions and tensions will lead to brother taking up arms against brother. But profound differences divide us today, as was the case in the 1850′s. The difference...

Has the Democratic Party ever enacted a law as atrocious as its government takeover of the American people’s healthcare? Has the Democratic Party ever enacted a law so unpopular? Yes and Yes. In 1854, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency. Their top priority was to repeal the Missouri Compromise prohibition of slavery in the northern territories. The author of this infamous legislation, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, was Stephen Douglas, a Democrat Senator from Illinois and owner of a slave plantation in Mississippi. Senator Douglas claimed the law would be a final solution to the slavery question, so that...

Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, Redux In America, socialism used to be confined within certain boundaries; that was before last Sunday’s vote.  We are now beginning to enter the Kansas-Nebraska Act stage of our republic’s socialist crisis. At our constitutional founding, the evil of slavery was crudely evaded. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise, which prohibited the abomination north of 36°30' north latitude (about the middle of Missouri), was enacted. But with the western push of the frontier, a new compromise was needed. So the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 decreed that the “popular sovereignty” of each territory should decide whether it would...

It's time to blow the whistle on two erroneous statements that opponents and proponents of the health care legislation being jammed through Congress have been making. Republicans have been saying that never before has Congress passed such an unpopular bill with such important ramifications by such a narrow majority. Barack Obama has been saying that passage of the bill will mean that the health care issue will be settled once and for all. The Republicans and Obama are both wrong. But perhaps they can be forgiven because the precedent for Congress passing an unpopular bill is an old one, and...