Frederick Douglas ~ American

It is long overdue, but one of America’s greatest writers, orators, and voices of freedom has finally received a degree from his hometown university, the University of Rochester. It is an honorary degree, as he was denied an opportunity for a normal education when he was young. While he was not able to attend himself, his great-great-great grandson, Kenneth B. Morris, Jr., accepted the award on his behalf. Frederick Douglass died in 1895, but his name remains familiar today with all who know American history. We are a better nation for his presence. Continue reading →

Man describes how he kept his illiteracy a secret and managed to con his way into a 17 year teaching career before finally coming clean and turning his life around

A California man has described how he managed to keep his illiteracy a secret from the world for decades – even when he worked as a teacher for 17 years.

John Corcoran, now 77, remarkably only learned to read at the age of 48.

Despite the fact that he couldn’t read or write, Corcoran finished high school, went on to earn himself a college degree and then landed himself a high school teaching job in the 1960s.

He went years without telling anybody about his illiteracy secret. Continue reading →

Cicero merits renewed attention

John Adams said of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) that “All ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher combined.” Anthony Everitt called him an “architect of constitutions that still govern our lives.” Thomas Jefferson said the Declaration of Independence was based on “the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.” Continue reading →

…as a little girl was at the center of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision.

The Topeka girl was just nine years old when her father Oliver Brown tried to enroll her at Sumner Elementary School, an all white school in 1951.

When the school refused to allow the black pupil to enroll, her father sued the Topeka Board of Education.

The lawsuit led to the famous 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education. Linda’s father was lead plaintiff in the case that saw the Supreme Court end school segregation.

Linda Brown died at age 76 Sunday afternoon at the Peaceful Rest Funeral Chapel in Topeka.

Her sister, Cheryl Brown Henderson, founding president of The Brown Foundation, confirmed the death to The Topeka Capital-Journal. Continue reading →

Thomas Paine

When Thomas Paine’s ship pulled into Baltimore harbor on October 30, 1802, a large gathering of friends and admirers were waiting at dockside to welcome him back. Others stood by as well, some filled with loathing, merely to observe a famous figure. Since leaving the United States in 1787 to find a builder for his iron bridge, Paine had authored some of the most incendiary tracts of the 18th century, had been imprisoned and narrowly escaped Robespierre’s guillotine, and was widely reported to be a drunk and an atheist. Continue reading →

The following column was originally posted by Kettle Moraine Publications on October 1, 2012. It is quite probable that embedded links may no longer be active. ~ Ed.

John Dewey

It is generally agreed that John Dewey (1859-1952) is the Father of American Education and the Greatest American Educator Ever.

The problem with the labels is that John Dewey, albeit a genius, was not an educator in the sense that most people use this word. He was not interested in teaching as most people understand that term, as for example in the statement “I teach French.”

Dewey was not primarily concerned with teaching new information. He was concerned with inculcating new attitudes. Continue reading →

Dickinson recognized that the essential purpose of government was to maintain liberty against others’ predatory acts.

John Dickinson was among America’s most important founders. He was a colonial legislator, member of the Stamp Act, Continental, and Confederation Congresses, chief executive of both Delaware (by a 25 to 1 vote; his being the only opposed) and Pennsylvania, president of the 1786 Annapolis convention that led to the Constitutional Convention, and among the most informed and seasoned statesmen to attend it. Historian Forrest McDonald wrote that, but for Dickinson and a few others, “the resulting constitution would not have been ratified.” Continue reading →

Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson

Thomas Jonathan Jackson, better known as Stonewall Jackson, was a legendary Confederate General during the American Civil War and one of the most accomplished tactical commanders in the history of the United States.

However, the story of Stonewall Jackson has more to it than it seems as he was more than just a successful Confederate General.

If we go a little deeper into history, we will discover that General Jackson is considered by many to be a civil-rights leader. In a period when, in the state of Virginia, teaching African-Americans to read and write was against the law, General Jackson broke this law every Sunday. Continue reading →

Benjamin Harrison the Signer was born at Berkely (later called Harrison’s Landing) in Charles City County, Virginia. He was the son of Benjamin Harrison and Anne Carter Harrison, daughter of Robert ‘King’ Carter of Corotoman. After education at the College of William and Mary this Benjamin in 1749 became the fifth in a line of planter/politicians of the same name to sit in and stolen slaves were returned or replaced. And when an excise was proposed in place of the Impost he fought against it as a Yankee plot, and brought to bear upon the struggle all of his resources. Continue reading →

Army Sgt. William H. Carney was the first of the nation’s 88 African-American Medal of Honor recipients, earning the medal during the Union Army’s charge on Fort Wagner during the Civil War. Army photo

In recognition of African American History Month, we’re sharing the stories of the brave men who so gallantly risked and gave their lives for others, even in times when others weren’t willing to do the same in return.

We’ll start with the first black recipient of the award: Army Sgt. William H. Carney, who earned the honor for protecting one of the United States’ greatest symbols during the Civil War — the American flag. Continue reading →

The following excerpt is adapted from a speech delivered at Hillsdale College on May 12, 2017, at the dedication of a statue of Frederick Douglass on the College’s Liberty Walk.

Frederick Douglas ~ American

Frederick Douglass, a former slave and a leading abolitionist writer and orator, was the most photographed American of the 19th century. And as you at Hillsdale College know, one of the most famous photographs of Douglass was taken in this town, just a few weeks after President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. At the invitation of a ladies literary society, Douglass came to Hillsdale and spoke in the College Chapel on January 21, 1863. The title of his lecture was “Popular Error and Unpopular Truth.” As reported in the newspaper, Douglass said: “There was no such thing as new truth. Error might be old or new; but truth was as old as the universe.” Continue reading →

When New York Produced Giants for Liberty

“The idea pervades the bill that severe penalties will secure enforcement; but all experience shows that undue severity of laws defeats their execution … [N]o law can be sustained which goes beyond public feeling and sentiment. All experience shows that temperance, like other virtues, is not produced by lawmakers, but by the influences of education, morality and religion. Men may be persuaded — they cannot be compelled — to adopt habits of temperance.” ~ Horatio Seymour, 1854

This essay is about a long-forgotten New Yorker who served in his state’s legislature and twice as governor, then nearly became President of the United States. Much respected, even beloved by many in his day, his name was Horatio Seymour. He deserves to be dusted off and appreciated now, almost 130 years since his death. But first, some context.

The Democratic Party in the state of New York these days is about as “liberal” (in the twentieth-century, American sense of the term) as it gets. On economic issues in particular, it is reliably statist, meaning it rarely deviates from the “more government is the answer” mentality, no matter how strongly logic or evidence point elsewhere. But not so long ago, New York’s Democrats were largely of the opposite persuasion. They were often what we now would call “classical liberals,” ardent skeptics of the concentration of power. Classical liberals really believed in liberty; today’s liberals really don’t. Continue reading →

Part 2: Will Dallas join the 2017 Great Purge of American History?

Does the Dallas task force on Confederate monuments know what the antebellum politician, for whom their city was named, thought about the Congressional Acts that supported slavery?

George Mifflin Dallas was born July 10, 1792, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Before he died on December 31, 1864, he served as an American diplomat to two countries, and was elected or appointed to government service at the city, state, and national levels representing the Democratic Party.

Here is a list of most of his major achievements: Continue reading →

Bushwacker Bill Wilson

The story of Bill Wilson has been told throughout the Ozark Mountains since he began his bloody career in 1861 to the present day. He is a true folk hero. The Ozarks were full of men who took to the bush and waged a single man to a small gang warfare on the union soldiers, red legs, jayhawkers and spies for the Union. Although there were a lot of these men, if someone said, “The Bushwhacker,” “The Great Bushwhacker,” or the “Famous Bushwhacker,” everyone knew that they were talking about Bill Wilson. His daring deeds are still considered miracles due to his never being wounded once. He is remembered for his superior skill with revolvers and clever tactics in surprising his enemies. The writings and movie about Josey Wales are based on the real bushwhacker, Bill Wilson. Continue reading →

A while ago, I was dumbstruck by a comment a Republican party insurgent in Utah made about her former governor, Jon Huntsman, Jr., a Republican politician who received strong kudos from the libertarian Cato Institute. “‘On a good day, a socialist,’ said Darcy Van Orden, a co-founder of Utah Rising . . . . ‘On a bad day, he’s a communist’.” And, of course, people like Ms. Van Orden consider it obvious that Barack Obama is a socialist, if not worse. David Koch, one of the brother team of conservative financial angels, commented, for example, that Obama’s “father was a hard core economic socialist in Kenya . . . [and Obama] was apparently from what I read a great admirer of his father’s points of view.”

Abraham Lincoln It is striking how the term “socialist” has been redefined so that almost any policy and anyone can get that label. Indeed, many a past president would qualify by these standards ­ surely FDR, Truman, and Democrats through Clinton ­ but so would Republican presidents. By the standards of people such as Ms. Van Orden and David Koch, Abraham Lincoln was surely an out-and-out “socialist-communist.” Continue reading →

Let me begin on a personal note. I am a 56-year-old, third-generation, African American Washingtonian who is a graduate of the D.C. public schools and who happens also to be a great admirer of Robert E. Lee.

Today, Lee, who surrendered his troops to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House 134 years ago, is under attack by people – black and white – who have incorrectly characterized him as a traitorous, slaveholding racist. He was recently besieged in Richmond by those opposed to having his portrait displayed prominently in a new park. Continue reading →

Born on January 17th, 1846 in Nansemond County, Virginia to his parents Rev. Edward Howell and his wife Americus Howell.

Julius grew up on a plantation the youngest of 16 children. He attended school at home and then later was a student at Reynoldson Institute in Gates County, North Carolina. The institute closed with the declaration of war in 1861. At the age of sixteen Howell entered Confederate service and would later become a member of the 24th Virginia Cavalry. Continue reading →

February 24, 2009 – God’s children, of African, Asian, European, Hispanic, American Indian, and Jewish ancestry, were once told stories about the men and women who helped make America great. When I was a child, the heritage of our ancestors was very important to both young and old but, today, political correct thought has taken the place of historical truth and many schools, streets and parks, named for our beloved forefathers and mothers have been changed.

I write this article as the Sons of Confederate Veterans of Virginia, a Southern fraternal-historical group, is looking for a location to unveil a historically correct statue depicting Confederate President Jefferson Davis and two of his sons Joe and Jim Limber. Jim was a black child adopted by the Davis family and Joe was tragically killed by a fall in 1864 at the Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia. Continue reading →

~Foreword ~

AMERICA: The Grand Illusion ~ Orphans of the Storm

During the process of compiling and editing the first volume of AMERICA: The Grand Illusion ~ Book I: Orphans of the Storm, I had occasion to work with my twelve year old granddaughter, Taylor (whose name fittingly works its way into this tale) on a history project for school, dealing with the War Between the States (which we have covered extensively on this site, but will eventually move into a category of its own). Needless to say, her teacher has been compromised in her education, and is subsequently passing her ignorance of American history onto the next generation of ill-informed children.

I searched our families’ boxes of historical archives to gather information on an ancestor, who had fought in that un-civil action, and found a family genealogy, which had been compiled by my great-grandparents in 1926, and later updated in 1959 by a family cousin. Whether it has been updated since remains to be seen, but that, which I am about to share with you has led to great discoveries on the internet about the subject matter of this chapter. For the purposes of brevity however, I will share with you directly from the family records, which are not unlike hundreds of thousands of similar ancestral stories, which can be told of this grand experiment we call, ‘America.’ Continue reading →