Free Republic

I think we can agree that it had nothing to do with caring about the slaves. I was thinking that 4 million sudden extra bodies in the poor southern economy would have the same effect as high immigration, keeping the wages of the poorest workers suppressed and it would keep the South from developing economically, while the North would benefit from their ownership of Southern industries. Does that sound about right or am I wrong on this?

After we get done with Hunter Biden, can we look into Chelsea Clinton? Just askin' ML/NJ

People think that Abe Lincoln was such a benevolent President. He was actually a bit of a tyrant. He attacked the Confederate States of America, who seceded from the Union due to tax and tariffs. (If you think it was over slavery, you need to find a real American history book written before 1960.) This picture is of 38 Santee Sioux Indian men that were ordered to be executed by Abraham Lincoln for treaty violations (IE: hunting off of their assigned reservation). So, on December 26, 1862, the “Great Emancipator” ordered the largest mass execution in American History, where the...

A pro-Ted Cruz robo-telephone call is blasting Donald Trump for butting his nose into support of the Confederate flag coming down. The recorded message, coming late in the campaign, also takes a jab at Gov. Nikki Haley. “Put it in a museum, let it go,” the recording says, quoting Trump and his view on removing the flag. An announcer then picks up by saying “That’s Donald Trump supporting Nikki Haley removing the battle flag from the Confederate memorial in Columbia.” It adds “people like Donald Trump are always butting their noses into other people’s business,” and that “Trump talks about...

Henry Krinkle and Emma Quangel have uncovered what appears to be the website of Dylann Roof, the man who murdered nine people in a Charleston church earlier this week. (The site was registered in February of this year, and Quangel reports that she confirmed Roof's responsibility with a reverse whois search.) The site, called The Last Rhodesian, contains a zip file full of photos of Roof in various poses, often armed, sometimes with a Confederate flag, sometimes trampling or burning an American flag. And it contains a manifesto, which doesn't leave any room for doubt—in case anyone still had any—about...

One hundred-fifty years after Appomattox, many Southerners still won’t give up. One hundred fifty years ago, on April 9th, 1865, Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House and the Union triumphed in the Civil War. Yet the passage of a century and a half has not dimmed the passion for the Confederacy among many Americans. Just three weeks ago, the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) appeared before the Supreme Court arguing for the right to put a Confederate flag on vanity license plates in Texas. Just why would someone in 2015 want a Confederate flag on their license...

Republicans, I come in peace.Until very recently, Rand Paul’s project of insinuating himself comfortably within the Republican Party, and positioning himself as a plausible presidential nominee, had gone along with remarkable ease. Yes, the author of his campaign book turned out to be an unreconstructed neo-Confederate. That was a speed bump. (Who among us has not entrusted the explication of his worldview to a man who has cheered on the assassination of President Lincoln?) Paul had staged a masterful piece of political theater with his marathon Senate speech denouncing the Obama administration’s drone policy. He has assembled a top-tier campaign...

Zo has strong words for neo-confederate libertarians, especially those who infiltrated the CPAC conference. He reminds viewers why some libertarians have no place in the conservative movement, and why Republicans should embrace the vision of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. (Video at link)

An unexpected feature of this year's gubernatorial race is the revival of certain political notions identified with early American history. Republican candidate Debra Medina in particular has made nullification a major aspect of her campaign, both in her two debates with U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Gov. Rick Perry and on her Web site, which includes, under the label "Restore Sovereignty," the message that the U.S. Constitution "divides power between the federal and state governments and ultimately reserves final authority for the people themselves. Texas must stop the over reaching federal government and nullify federal mandates in agriculture, energy,...

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...

Power, Legitimacy, and the 14th Amendment by Joseph E. Fallon The justification for the vast, intrusive, and coercive powers employed by the government of the United States against its citizens from affirmative action to hate-crimes legislation, from multilingualism to multiculturalism, from Waco to Ruby Ridge is the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution adopted in 1868, or, more specifically, the authority conferred upon Washington, explicitly or implicitly, by the privileges and immunities and equal protection clauses of that amendment. The government of the United States, as established by the U.S. Constitution in 1789, was effectively abolished by the 14th Amendment....

Commentary: The Red State-Slave State Connection is all too Real Commentary: The Red State-Slave State Connection is all too Real Date: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 By: Last week while I was up at Harvard University meeting with black columnists from around the country, including several of my BlackAmericaWeb.com colleagues, Michael Dawson took me to school with his map that shows the overlap between Republican red states and the old Confederacy and slave-friendly territories. Dawson is a professor of government and Afro-American studies who specializes in the ways that race and politics intersect. I was sold. His map spoke to the...

ATLANTA - With little fanfare or controversy, the House proclaimed 2007 as the "Year of Lee" in honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Lee's birthday was celebrated Friday by a small crowd at the Capitol. Officially, the birthday is one of three Confederate state holidays, but government employees are off the Friday after Thanksgiving. Resolutions saluting people pass the General Assembly almost daily without discussion or much notice, but those recognizing controversial figures usually trigger a debate. For example, last year, a measure commending Oscar-winning actress and Georgia resident Jane Fonda for...

Any attempt to judge our history by today's standards -- out of the context in which it occurred -- is at best problematic and at worst dishonest.For example, consider the following quotations:"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.""[T]here is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."By today's standards, the person who made the first statement, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, would be considered enlightened. The person who made the second,...

Confederate flags flown aboard the international space station — and seemingly signed by a NASA astronaut — showed up last week on the online auction site eBay. The original eBay listing indicated that the 4-by-6-inch flags were brought aboard the space station by Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov in 2004, and an accompanying photo showed a sample flag that seemed to bear Sharipov’s signature as well as that of Leroy Chiao, his NASA colleague on the station. Yet another photo showed several of the rebel flags floating in a space station module. The item was pulled from the auction on Monday...

Sen. George Allen, who has tried to reach out to minority voters in recent years, wore a Confederate flag pin on his shirt collar in a high-school yearbook photo, a national magazine reported yesterday. As a high school student in Palos Verdes, Calif., Allen was seen riding in or driving a Ford Mustang with either a Confederate flag license plate or Confederate flag imagery on the car, The New Republic quoted witnesses as saying. The Virginia Republican, seeking re-election now and weighing a presidential bid in 2008, was to depart today to co-host a civil-rights history tour for members of...

The removal of the Confederate flag from Amherst County's official seal has upset Southern heritage groups, who contend residents weren't told of the change. County officials acknowledge the image was quietly removed in August 2004 to avoid an uproar.

I love history. I’m proud of my Southern heritage. But for me to be angry to the point of protesting a moment in Southern history that happened nearly a century-and-a-half ago would be just, well, nonsensical. And would in some ways tarnish that heritage.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - An organizer of a planned memorial to honor Confederate soldiers who died at an Illinois prison camp says the rebel flag will be displayed at the memorial's dedication, despite opposition. "We consider this an honorable flag. This is a soldier's flag," said Ron Casteel, national chief of staff for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, one of the memorial's planners. "There will be no substitute." Camp Butler, just east of Springfield, was a training facility for Union troops during the Civil War and a prison camp for more than 3,500 captured Confederates. More than 800 of the prisoners...

COLUMBIA - A judge has ruled that a collection of rare, Civil War-era letters belong to South Carolina rather than the man who has had them in his family for generations. The state sued after Charleston resident Thomas Willcox tried to auction off the letters. Willcox, a descendant of Confederate Gen. Evander Law, filed for bankruptcy soon after. The collection includes more than 440 letters detailing life in South Carolina between 1861 and 1863. Many letters are correspondence between generals or the Confederate government and S.C. Govs. Francis Pickens and Milledge Bonham during the Civil War. Three are written by...