Category Archives: Mr. Adair’s Classroom

“Where do we begin Mr. Adair?”

“At the beginning, ” he said. And throughout the year that I was under his tutelage – he would continue to challenge me to, “Never stop searching for truth.” In this endeavor, we provide – once again – the writings of many writers – many of whom I have known for years – providing historical lessons of import and understanding – little of which is addressed in our “classrooms” today.

The TRUTH about Lincoln and the issue of Slavery

July 16, 1862, Congress and Lincoln begin legislation to deport all people of color from the U.S. and it’s territories. Later, on July 21, Lincoln signed and an act approving $500,000 to begin “colonization”, AKA deportation.

37th Congess. (US)
No. 148. REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON EMANCIPATION AND COLONIZATION, In the House of Representatives, July 16, 1862:

“It is useless, now, to enter upon any philosophical inquiry whether nature has or has not made the negro inferior to the Caucasian. The belief is indelibly fixed upon the public mind that such inequality does exist. There are irreconcilable differences between the two races which separate them, as with a wall of fire. The home for the African must not be within the limits of the present territory of the Union. The Anglo- American looks upon every acre of our present domain as intended for him, and not for the negro. A home, therefore, must be sought for the African beyond our own limits and in those warmer regions to which his constitution is better adapted than to our own climate,and which doubtless the Almighty intended the colored races should inhabit and cultivate.

Much of the objection to emancipation arises from the opposition of a large portion of our people to the intermixture of the races, and from the association of white and black labor. The committee would do nothing to favor such a policy; apart from the antipathy which nature has ordained, the presence of a race among us who cannot, and ought not to be admitted to our social and political privileges, will be a perpetual source of injury and inquietude to both. This is a question of color, and is unaffected by the relation of master and slave.
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The Moral Judgments of Henry David Thoreau

Why, given its fabrications, inconsistencies, and myopia, do we continue to cherish “Walden?

An illustration of Henry David Thoreau in a pond: Why, given his hypocrisy, sanctimony, and misanthropy, has Thoreau been so cherished? – Illustration by Eric Nyquist

In the evening of October 6, 1849, the hundred and twenty people aboard the brig St. John threw a party. The St. John was a so-called famine ship: Boston-bound from Galway, it was filled with passengers fleeing the mass starvation then devastating Ireland. They had been at sea for a month; now, with less than a day’s sail remaining, they celebrated the imminent end of their journey and, they hoped, the beginning of a better life in America. Early the next morning, the ship was caught in a northeaster, driven toward shore, and dashed upon the rocks just outside Cohasset Harbor. Those on deck were swept overboard. Those below deck drowned when the hull smashed open. Within an hour, the ship had broken up entirely. All but nine crew members and roughly a dozen passengers perished.

Two days later, a thirty-two-year-old Massachusetts native, en route from Concord to Cape Cod, got word of the disaster and detoured to Cohasset to see it for himself. When he arrived, fragments of the wreck were scattered across the strand. Those victims who had already washed ashore lay in rough wooden boxes on a nearby hillside. The living were trying to identify the dead—a difficult task, since some of the bodies were bloated from drowning, while others had struck repeatedly against the rocks. Out of sentiment or to save labor, the bodies of children were placed alongside their mothers in the same coffin. Continue reading

Thomas Paine, Political Activist and Voice of the American Revolution

Paine’s Pamphlet “Common Sense” Inspired the Patriot Cause

Thomas Paine was an English-born writer and political activist who became, shortly after his arrival in America, the leading propagandist of the American Revolution. His pamphlet “Common Sense,” which appeared anonymously in early 1776, became wildly popular and helped sway public opinion to the radical position of splitting from the British Empire.

Paine followed up by publishing, during the bitter winter when the Continental Army was camped at Valley Forge, a pamphlet titled “The American Crisis,” which urged Americans to remain steadfast to the patriot cause. Continue reading

The Real Jim Crow

~ Foreward ~
I am delighted to publish this article by Mike Scruggs, historian, author, columnist for The Times Examiner out of Greenville, South Carolina. I have Mike’s 359 page illustrated book, The Un-Civil War, Shattering the Historical Myths, which promises to be outstanding. I look forward to reviewing it in the next few weeks.

Thomas D. Rice, the original Jim Crow, in costume.

This article contains much historical detail and makes it clear why Southern states, after the horrors of Reconstruction, felt an imperative to copy the Jim Crow laws of the Northern states. Before Reconstruction, the South was integrated, by necessity, according to C. Vann Woodward in The Strange Career of Jim Crow, which produced an intimacy between blacks and whites not found anywhere else in the country. That’s not to say that race relations were always great, but they were far better in the South than in the North and the West. Blacks and whites in the South did not recoil from each other as did the white Yankee women at the end of Gone with the Wind with the thought of Mammy touching their children. Scarlett O’Hara found that absurd. That is a good case of fiction perfectly illustrating reality.

The North and West were the opposite of the South. Blacks and whites were rigidly segregated, by custom, law, or both. ~ Gene Kizer, Jr. Continue reading

How Blacks Enslaved and Colonized, Just Like Whites

The narrative today is that all of white America must practice penitence for the past sins of their forefathers. It doesn’t matter a whit that for many whites, the likes of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln weren’t even their forefathers; it is estimated that 40% of Americans can trace an ancestor to Ellis Island, which was open only between 1892 and 1954. But by the racist standards of the left, white skin is white skin, regardless of where it originated or when it arrived here. Black immigration to America since the Civil War tells a similar story. At least 4 million black Africans have immigrated to the United States since 1980 alone, accounting for as much as 15-20% of the entire black population in the United States.

But all whites should be punished by all blacks for crimes committed over 150 years ago because … racism. Institutional racism. Structural racism. Systemic racism. Foundational racism. Apparently, COVID was racist. CNN shared a recent story about environmental racism. What’s next, being nice and treating everyone decently is racist? OOPS. Continue reading

1638-1639: The Oath of a Freeman…OR?

The following description and image has been provided by Heritage Auctions through a recent offering. ~ Ed.

[Mark Hofmann, forger]. The Oath of a Freeman. Printed broadside comprising a forgery of the first document printed in English North America. [The Oath of a Freeman. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Stephen Daye, circa 1638-1639 but Salt Lake City, Utah: Mark Hofmann, March 25, 1985]. Text arranged in 28 lines within an ornamental border, measuring approximately 5.875 x 4.125 inches (149 x 105 mm), with uneven edges and several tears. Docketed on verso, “Oath of a freeman” in ink in a 17th century-like hand [Mark Hofmann’s], small hole affecting “h” in “Oath” imitating iron gall ink oxidation. Housed in a polyester folder within an elaborate linen case with cover label, produced by the Library of Congress.

The Oath of a Freeman is thought to have been printed by Stephen Daye in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1638 or 1639. Daye was a locksmith by trade; he set up the press in America when the first printer died on the journey across the Atlantic. Continue reading

Deceive The Parents ~ Just Like You’ve Always Done!

For decades I have been telling people to remove their kids from the public school system because it is a corrupt institution that indoctrinates kids rather than educating them. The material I will deal with here proves that contention.

Someone sent me a copy of an article by Art Moore, that dealt with this. I will quote some of what he had to say here. He said: “Amid complaints from parents that their children are being ‘indoctrinated’ a Missouri school district is advising English teachers to create a fake curriculum and keep the real one hidden. Continue reading

Why the Pilgrims Abandoned Common Ownership for Private Property

The first few years of Plymouth colony were fraught with hardship and hunger. Economics had a lot to do with it.

Credit: George Henry Boughton

November 25, 2019 ~ Next year at this time, Americans will mark the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower in 1620 and the subsequent founding of the Plymouth colony by English Separatists we know as the Pilgrims. They, of course, became the mothers and fathers of the first Thanksgiving. Continue reading

The War of Federal Aggression: Total War in Georgia

In June 1863, Fitzgerald Ross, a British military man who was collecting information about the war in America, paid a visit to Richmond, Virginia, the capital city of the Confederacy. There he met with some high officials of the government, one of whom was Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin. Ross described their meeting his 1865 book A Visit to the Cities and Camps of the Confederate States:

We had a long, and, I need hardly say, a most interesting conversation. We talked about the war and the foreign prospects of the Confederacy, and the atrocities which the Yankees seem to delight in committing whenever they have a chance. Continue reading

Original draft of the Declaration of Independence

This is a scan of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson’s actual handwriting that now sits in Jefferson’s papers in the Library of Congress. There is a word seen here in Jefferson’s original draft that was removed from the official version inscribed by Timothy Matlack. The removal of that word radically changed the course of American history. Do you see what that word is? ~ Ed.

(COPY and PASTE, or Drag the image to your desktop for FULL size)

Born on the Tenth of January

If Tom Cruise was Born on the Fourth of July, then he can thank Thomas Paine, who it can be said was born on January 10, 1776 with the publication of his incendiary essay, Common Sense, that argued for independence from England. He priced it cheaply (two shillings), argued passionately, and wrote in a direct style so that readers could understand him. Continue reading

Ten Headlines That Should Terrify Parents About K-12 Public Schooling

…apparently NOT!

Following the events in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, many schools pushed out advice that talking about both sides was no longer an option. One guidance that circulated among educators was titled “There’s Nothing Virtuous About Finding Common Ground.” Translation of this document amounts to the fact that open debate, pros and cons lists, and anything else that exposes impressionable minds to anything other than prevailing orthodoxy is prohibited in many public schools. At least they’re finally admitting that the Common Core standard of critical thinking was really a euphemistic red herring for critical race theory instead.

Some states are pushing back; Iowa’s legislature recently proposed a law that would make it illegal, and punishable by fines, to teach anything related to Critical Race Theory, 1619 Project, etc. in its public schools. That’s a good start, but it isn’t enough. Parents need to speak up and more legislatures need to act. It is also encouraging that several states are pushing back on the Biden administration;’s transgender idiocy. Continue reading

The Harlem Hellfighters: The Incredible Story Behind the Most Decorated US Regiment in WWI

No matter what you think about America entering World War I, and no matter what color your skin, you can celebrate the heroic Harlem Hellfighters. They were among the best.

In his Commencement Address at Washington, D.C.’s Howard University in June 1924, almost six years after World War I ended, President Calvin Coolidge paid tribute to African Americans who had fought in it:

The colored people have repeatedly proved their devotion to the high ideals of our country. They gave their services in the war with the same patriotism and readiness that other citizens did. The records of the selective draft show that somewhat more than 2,250,000 colored men were registered. The records further prove that, far from seeking to avoid participation in the national defense, they showed that they wished to enlist before the selective service act was put into operation, and they did not attempt to evade that act afterwards.
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John Jay: The Nation’s most forgotten Founding Father

On December 12, 2017, one of America’s most prominent, yet forgotten, Founding Fathers would have turned 272 years old. John Jay, a native of New York City, had among the most impressive resumes in American history, especially among the Founding Fathers who never became president. Jay served in the Continental Congress, as a diplomat representing the United States in the Treaty of Paris, an author of the Federalist Papers, America’s first chief justice, acting secretary of state under George Washington, and governor of New York. Continue reading

January 30, 2021: History Lesson of the Day

On April 23, 1910, a year after leaving his presidential office, Theodore Roosevelt gave what would become one of his greatest rhetorical triumphs. The most famous section of his speech still resonates and inspires, even today.

It is not the critic who counts.

(Video-Text) united States Constitution · Amendments · Bill of Rights

I am an old fashioned (‘Old School‘, that is) kind of teacher and as I was growing up – all we had to study this phenomenal work – was The Constitution of the united States of America (not a typo) itself – the WRITTEN word, BUT in these modern times we have the audio AND video variations of those words. Put your mind into this – and LEARN what the basis of our government was – and IS – meant to be. ~ Ed.

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President Jefferson in the White House

She was a new bride in the fall of 1800. Immediately following her wedding in Philadelphia Margaret Bayard Smith and her husband traveled to Washington to make a new home. He had just started the Washington Intelligencer newspaper. Mr. Smith and his newspaper supported Thomas Jefferson in his bid for the presidency in the election of 1800. After his election and throughout his eight years as President, Jefferson often invited the Smith’s to the White House or visited their home on Capitol Hill. Continue reading

Walter Williams ~ An Unlikely Proponent of Secession

There’s no disputing the void that has been left behind since economist Walter Williams passed away in December. Williams had a remarkable ability to convey free market economic concepts in a way the masses could easily digest. Big shoes to fill indeed.

Walter Williams’s Sympathy toward Secession
One overlooked aspect of Williams’s work was his sympathy for the strategy of secession. It may surprise some of us that an African American could even support such an idea. The commonly touted narrative on secession, after all, is that only supporters of the secessionist old Confederacy would even think about supporting secession today. Attempts to connect secession to racism and slavery are common. Continue reading