I should say that he was an old-fashioned man in respect for the Constitution, and his faith in the permanence of this Union.

Read to the citizens of Concord, Massachusetts

I trust that you will pardon me for being here. I do not wish to force my thoughts upon you, but I feel forced myself. Little as I know of Captain Brown, I would fain do my part to correct the tone and the statements of the newspapers, and of my countrymen generally, respecting his character and actions. It costs us nothing to be just. We can at least express our sympathy with, and admiration of, him and his companions, and that is what I now propose to do.

Henry David Thoreau

First, as to his history. I will endeavor to omit, as much as possible, what you have already read. I need not describe his person to you, for probably most of you have seen and will not soon forget him. I am told that his grandfather, John Brown, was an officer in the Revolution; that he himself was born in Connecticut about the beginning of this century, but early went with his father to Ohio. I heard him say that his father was a contractor who furnished beef to the army there, in the war of 1812; that he accompanied him to the camp, and assisted him in that employment, seeing a good deal of military life, – more, perhaps, than if he had been a soldier; for he was often present at the councils of the officers. Especially, he learned by experience how armies are supplied and maintained in the field, – a work which, he observed, requires at least as much experience and skill as to lead them in battle. Continue reading →

William Seward

ROCHESTER, N. Y., October 25, 1858 – Almost on the eve of this year’s momentous election, when slavery has become virtually the sole issue – and particularly the question of how Kansas and other prospective states are to be admitted into the Union – Senator William Henry Seward challenged here today the very integrity of the Democratic party and its espousal of slavery in those present or future states where it is legal.

The Senator is not a candidate for re-election, as his term has two more years to run. His prestige is so great, beginning with his governorship of this state in 1838 and continuing through a Senate career that began in 1849, that he might well have remained out of this contest. Nevertheless, he has taken such a forceful stand that he maybe counted in the forefront of the fight just as vigorously as, for instance, Mr. Abraham Lincoln, who in Illinois is staking his political future on a campaign for a Senate seat. Continue reading →

John Brown, 1859

October 16-18, 1859 – John Brown’s plan seemed fairly straightforward: he and his men would establish a base in the Blue Ridge Mountains from which they would assist runaway slaves and launch attacks on slaveholders. At least that was the plan that the militant abolitionist had described to potential funders in 1857. But his plans would change. He had been ready in 1858 to launch his war – he had both the men and the money to proceed. Brown was asked to postpone the launch, though, because one of his followers had threatened to reveal the plan – a threat that the blackmailer did follow through on. So Brown agreed to go into hiding.

The following summer, after a one-year delay, Brown was eager to get underway. He rented a farm in Maryland, across the Potomac River from Harper’s Ferry. Here he assembled his arms and waited for his “army” to arrive. Continue reading →

Message on the Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act

President Grover Cleveland

August 8, 1893 ~ The existence of an alarming and extraordinary business situation, involving the welfare and prosperity of all our people, has constrained me to call together in extra session the people’s representatives in Congress, to the end that through a wise and patriotic exercise of the legislative duty, with which they solely are charged, present evils may be mitigated and dangers threatening the future may be averted.

Our unfortunate financial plight is not the result of untoward events nor of conditions related to our natural resources, nor is it traceable to any of the afflictions which frequently check national growth and prosperity. With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative production and manufacture, with unusual invitation to safe investment, and with satisfactory assurance to business enterprise, suddenly financial distrust and fear have sprung up on every side. . . . Values supposed to be fixed are fast becoming conjectural, and loss and failure have invaded every branch of business. Continue reading →

Hail, Caesar: We who are about to die salute you

~ Prologue ~
Professor Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain from Bowden College in Maine was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment in 1862 and fought at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

At the beginning of the American Civil War, Chamberlain believed the Union needed to be supported against the Confederacy by all those willing. On several occasions, Chamberlain spoke freely of his beliefs during his class, urging students to follow their hearts in regards to the war while maintaining that the cause was just. Of his desire to serve in the War, he wrote to Maine’s Governor Israel Washburn, Jr., “I fear, this war, so costly of blood and treasure, will not cease until men of the North are willing to leave good positions, and sacrifice the dearest personal interests, to rescue our country from desolation, and defend the national existence against treachery.” Continue reading →

Loved by many, despised by others, “Dixie” is still among the most recognizable of all American songs. Ironically, it was written by a Northerner, Daniel Decatur Emmett. Bryant’s (blackface) Minstrels premiered it in New York City on April 4, 1859. “I Wish I Was in Dixie’s Land” was an instant hit, and its popularity spread quickly. By 1860 it was especially enjoyed in Southern states and soon also among Confederate army bands. However, many Union bands also played Dixie during the war, or versions of it, and President Lincoln included Dixie among his favorites. There are numerous variations and alternative verses. Continue reading →

March 11, 1861, The Confederate Constitution is Approved

The Confederate Congress

Delegates from the newly formed Confederate States of America agreed on their own constitution. Here is a look at this little-known third constitution that controlled the lives of about 9 million people for a short period of time.

Much of the Confederate Constitution mirrored the Constitution of the United States as it existed at the time, with bigger differences in the matters of slavery and states’ rights.

In 1860, there were more than 9 million people, including 3 million slaves, living in the states and territories that would leave the Union, compared with 22 million people outside those areas. Continue reading →

The Capitol, Washington, March 4, 1861 – The national upheaval of secession was a grim reality at Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration. Jefferson Davis had been inaugurated as the President of the Confederacy two weeks earlier. The former Illinois Congressman had arrived in Washington by a secret route to avoid danger, and his movements were guarded by General Winfield Scott’s soldiers. Ignoring advice to the contrary, the President-elect rode with President Buchanan in an open carriage to the Capitol, where he took the oath of office on the East Portico. Chief Justice Roger Taney administered the executive oath for the seventh time.

Fellow-Citizens of the United States…

In compliance with a custom as old as the Government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly and to take in your presence the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President “before he enters on the execution of this office.” Continue reading →

At around 5:20 AM on March 4, 1861 ~ Inauguration Day…

Photo of Congressman Thomas Corwin (R, OH), the chair of the House committee established to develop a way to avert the secession crisis. He introduced the Corwin Amendment in the House, in addition to lending his name to it.

The Senate voted 24-12 to pass a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would permanently preserve slavery in the states where it currently existed. If successfully ratified, it would become the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution – and hopefully avert the secession crisis and the impending Civil War. However, only six states had ratified the amendment by early 1862, and the amendment died soon after. The last attempt to stop the Civil War, an attempt which had been in the works since shortly after the presidential election, had failed.

Two potential reasons for its failure were the speed with which the secession movement acted and the inability of Southern moderates to realize the threat the movement posed. In the almost immediate aftermath of Lincoln’s election as president in 1860, the secession movement was rapidly gaining steam in the Deep South. Just days after the election, South Carolina’s state legislature called for a state convention. A month later, South Carolinians elected delegates to the convention, and two weeks later – on December 20th – South Carolina seceded from the Union. Many Northerners – convinced most of the pro-Secession voters were being brainwashed by radical politicians – did not take this movement seriously at first and Republicans in particular saw no need to do anything about it, least of all compromise. Continue reading →

Bombardment of Fort Sumter

At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, a signal shell fired from a Confederate mortar burst in the sky over the federally occupied island fortress of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Fifteen minutes later, at 4:45, the Confederate batteries around the harbor opened fire on the fort, with the intention of driving out the eighty-five Union troops garrisoned there. The first battle of Fort Sumter, the first battle in the War of Northern Aggression, a war which was, before its end four years later, to claim the lives of approximately three-quarters of a million Americans, soldiers, civilians, and slaves, men, women, and children, and become the bloodiest conflict in the history of this nation, had begun. Continue reading →

Alabama Capitol, Montgomery

Gentlemen of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Friends and Fellow-Citizens:

Called to the difficult and responsible station of Chief Executive of the Provisional Government which you have instituted, I approach the discharge of the duties assigned to me with an humble distrust of my abilities, but with a sustaining confidence in the wisdom of those who are to guide and to aid me in the administration of public affairs, and an abiding faith in the virtue and patriotism of the people.

Looking forward to the speedy establishment of a permanent government to take the place of this, and which by its greater moral and physical power will be better able to combat with the many difficulties which arise from the conflicting interests of separate nations, I enter upon the duties of the office to which I have been chosen with the hope that the beginning of our career as a Confederacy may not be obstructed by hostile opposition to our enjoyment of the separate existence and independence which we have asserted, and, with the blessing of Providence, intend to maintain. Continue reading →

Speech on the Treasury Note Bill, delivered February 6, 1862 in the U.S. House of Representatives

“We believe that the credit of the country will be sustained by it, that under it all classes will be paid in money which all classes can use, and that will confer no advantage on the capitalist over the poor laboring man.”

Thaddeus Stevens

Mr. Stevens: Mr. Chairman, this bill is a measure of necessity, not of choice. No one would willingly issue paper currency not redeemable on demand and make it legal tender. It is never desirable to depart from the circulating medium which, by common consent of civilized nations, forms the standard of value. But it is not a fearful measure; and when rendered necessary by exigencies, it ought to produce no alarm.
Continue reading →

January 1, 1863 – President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory. Continue reading →

“Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.”

How much more will this Zionist apartheid state be allowed to continue unabated in the world? Attacking who it wants when and where it wants… Enough is enough.. We, the people of the world, must come together as one and unite our voices against this tyrannical regime. It’s our world. They are not? our masters and we are not their slaves! The more of us willing to speak out and enlighten the ignorant the sooner we can rid the world of these criminals. ~ Ed.

‘The last thing we need now is a great leader.’

Penn Jillette – the larger, louder half of Penn & Teller – is a magician, comedian, actor, author and producer. The following commentary was offered during the battles of the 2008 Democrat and Republican National Conventions for the Presidency of the united States.

September 3, 2008 ~ Everyone I talk to seems to think the president of the United States right now is stupid.

The Bush presidency is stupid speeches, stupid high gas prices, stupid bad economy, stupid war on terrorism, stupid war on drugs, stupid hurricane fixing, stupid global warming, stupid war – stupid, stupid, stupid.
Continue reading →

“When he fell, civil authority was trampled underfoot.”

Wendell Phillips

BOSTON, Mass., Dec. 8, 1837 – A 26-year-old man, with oratorical powers far beyond his age, tonight soared nearer to leadership of the Abolitionist movement, with a stirring speech on the recent murder of Elijah Lovejoy which held spellbound an audience that filled Faneuil Hall.

The speaker was Wendell Phillips. His subject was the crusading editor who was murdered by a mob at Alton, Illinois, on November 7. Lovejoy, who had been driven from city to city by opponents of his Abolitionist crusade in the West, had suffered the destruction of three newspaper presses. Finally, arming himself with the consent of the authorities, he resisted what was to be the final attack upon him.

The point that particularly aroused Mr. Phillips, as it has a wide section of opinion throughout the North, is that pro-slavery spokesmen, including at least one clergyman, have blamed Lovejoy as responsible for his own death by persistence in acting contrary to public opinion, comparing the mob that killed him to the participants in the Boston Tea Party. Continue reading →

“Let us look to our country and our cause, elevate ourselves to the dignity of pure and disinterested patriots.”

Senator Henry Clay speaking about the Compromise of 1850

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 22, 1850 – Henry Clay, senator from Kentucky, has appealed to the Congress, and over its head to the public, to adopt compromises on the slavery issue in constitutional form which, he conceded, will not wholly please anyone but promise to save the Union.

His speech was made in connection with the introduction of a Senate Resolution worked out in a committee of which he was chairman. But while the resolution bears the imprimatur of a committee, the whole argument is more precisely the work of this western Senator who already has won the unofficial title of “The Great Compromiser.” Continue reading →

” ..the greatest and gravest question that ever can come under your consideration: How can the Union be preserved?”

John C. Calhoun

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 4, 1850 – The South’s most eloquent voice in Congress, albeit the voice of a dying man, was raised in the Senate in warning that the country below the Potomac will have no choice but to secede if current political trends – specifically admission of California as a “free” state – continue to increase the balance of national power held by the Northern states.

So spoke John C. Calhoun, 68-year-old spokesman for South Carolina, who 18 years ago led South Carolina’s unsuccessful fight for nullification over the issue of tariffs, and iron-willed foe alike of the Northern freedom viewpoint and of Henry Clay’s monumental efforts to compromise the feelings between North and South. Continue reading →

“Without union, our independence and liberty would never have been achieved; without union they never can be maintained.”

President Andrew Jackson

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 4, 1833 – “Any division of the United States through secession of individual States from the Union inevitably must lead to civil wars,” President Andrew Jackson stated today in the Address marking his second inauguration as President.

President Jackson’s exhortation served to draw attention to – and it was hoped to check-a rising tide of debate rooted fundamentally in the question of slavery. It is on this issue that the South feels that its rights are being traduced, and that the North feels equally strongly that the freedoms promised under the Constitution apply equally to all men within our borders. Continue reading →

Washington privately expressed his growing disdain for the institution – and his desire for its eventual abolition

December 21, 1772 ~ Ferry Farm, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the banks or the Rappahannock River, was one of several properties owned by George Washington’s father, Augustine. He acquired the property in 1738 and moved his second wife, Mary Ball Washington, to the farm along with their five young children. Augustine died suddenly in 1743 at age 49. He left his Mount Vernon estate to Lawrence, his eldest son from his first marriage, and Ferry Farm, with its ten slaves, to George, who was 11 years old at the time. Mary retained control of the farm until he came of age at 21. Continue reading →