150 years after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Americans are still fighting over the great issues at the heart of the conflict.

April 2015 ~ On this 150th anniversary of the surrender at Appomattox, Americans mark the end of the Civil War. The questions at the heart of the war, though, still occupy the nation, which has never truly gotten over that conflict. The great issues of the war were not resolved on that April morning at Appomattox. In this sense, not only is the Civil War not over; it can still be lost. Continue reading →

The Second Amendment declares that individual citizens have a right to keep and bear arms.

Revolutionary militia fire on the British

That right is not created by the Second Amendment but is recognized to naturally exist independent of the Constitution. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to make clear that the federal government lacks any authority to restrict or infringe that individual right.

The right is not just the right of the individual to own arms that are suitable for hunting, self defense, recreational shooting or collecting – although each of those are within its scope. The Second Amendment, much like the First Amendment, also exists to protect a political right and the political power that was essential to founding of this nation and as indicated in the Declaration of Independence. Continue reading →

William Techumseh Sherman, young officer

I would like to add a little footnote to Tom DiLorenzo’s recent treatment of General William Tecumseh Sherman and the Indians. This “footnote” is actually a “prequel” to Sherman’s famous “march” through Georgia and South Carolina, during the late Unpleasantness, and his later Indian-fighting activities after that not very “civil” war. It is my duty as a patriotic Floridian to describe this part of the Sherman saga and, anyway, it helps us better understand his attitude toward warfare.

I refer of course to Sherman’s unhappy days in the subtropics, 1840–1841. Of course putting those days — which added up to just under a year and a half — in context requires me to say a few things about the Second Seminole War (1835–1842). Now, as far back as the American Revolution, American leaders coveted Florida — then under British rule. This was for obvious reasons of political geography. Alas, it was not to be, and the Treaty of Paris (1783), which concluded the Revolutionary War, saw Florida handed back to Spain, after twenty years of British rule. Continue reading →

Lincoln is portrayed as meek and ineffectual in his prosecution of the war. In a wooded scene Lincoln, here in the character of an Irish sportsman in knee-breeches, discharges his blunderbuss at a small bird “C.S.A.” (Confederate States of America). The bird, perched in a tree at left, is unhurt, but Lincoln falls backward vowing, “Begorra, if ye wor at this end o’ th’ gun, ye wouldn’t flap yer wings that way, ye vill’in!” Continue reading →

… no concerts going on, and no sports to watch on TV. So you have no excuse to not read something you might learn something from.

I Don’t Know What To Call This Damned Thing (Just Read it Please!!!) ~ Neal

It is sad, (and I was just as guilty of this for a long period of my life), that people exhibit such a lack of interest in the history of their country. This is sad for two reasons; the first being that there is so much to learn from that history, and the second being how relatively easy it is to find that history now that everyone has a portable library in the hand all the time; i.e. their cell phones.

The internet is a vast place, filled with all kinds of things, and without a guide to point you in the right direction it is like walking into a huge library without a librarian, or a card catalogue telling you the location of the book you’re looking for. On top of that, anyone can post anything they want on the internet, (except for death threats or plans to build nuclear weapons), and that gets tossed into the mix; so it’s hard to tell if the information you are getting is accurate or not.

The best way to get at the truth regarding the history of our country, the nature of our Constitution and the men who wrote it, is to go to the horse’s mouth, so to speak; to seek out source documents from the period you are studying. Continue reading →