Liberty's Kids: We The People

As I was flipping through the channels on the television one day I noticed an interesting cartoon being shown on one channel which teaches about our nation's founding.  Since I hadn't seen a full episode I decided to search the internet to see whether I could find any of the episodes on YouTube and did. Cool. This cartoon looks to be a good way for kids to learn about our nation's founding and the issues that were involved during the first beginnings of the United States of America. It is even possible that some adults who are uneducated in the history of our nation's founding would learn a thing or two about our history from this cartoon. What do you think of the cartoon?

My Thoughts on Federalist Paper Number 6: The Tenth Amendment and Dissension Among the States

After reading Federalist Paper No. 6 which was written by Alexander Hamilton I noticed that he was concerned with disunity among the states.  After thinking, doesn't his concern for disunity among the states present a case against the tenth amendment?  I realize some may think that different states can be laboratories for experiment with various policies such as health care or education but Franklin's concern for dissension among the states gives me pause when I think of the tenth amendment.  Shouldn't the states be uniform in their policies so as to not cause confusion either morally, politically or financially?  But, isn't dissension and disagreement among the states what gave the federal government more power? Or was it due to man's lust for power, ambition, or vindictiveness? Maybe their wouldn't be dissension or discord among the states morally if they held different policies? The federal mandates we have today are far reaching and uniform among the states so this would be a case made for the tenth amendment.  We do need to take power away from the centralized government - federal government - and return it to the states. I am glad that some states have made progress in instituting pro-life laws.  That is another case in favor of the tenth amendment. There needs to be a healthy balance between which programs are relegated to the states and which are relegated to the federal government.  It is extremely unbalanced now, where the federal government has been granted too much power.

Independence Day - Tyranny Then and Now

By the latter part of the 18th century the Founding Fathers had decided to break free from the tyranny being forced upon them by Great Britain and on July 4, 1776 our Founders in the thirteen colonies declared their independence from Britain with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. What caused the founders to not only want but to demand this separation from Britain and King George? There were a series of usurpations that were forced upon the colonies by King George in Great Britain.


Here is a list of taxes that Britain imposed on the colonies in America:

The Molasses Act imposed duties on molasses, rum and sugar from non-British islands in the Caribbean Sea to protect the English planters form foreign competition. The act was generally ignored by the Americans. Therefore the British amended it with the Sugar Act (1764) one and a half pence per gallon on wine, sugar and testiles. To settle problems under the Molasses Act the tax was reduced by fifty percent but strictly enforced. Now the Americans were feeling the threat of British rule and objected the way how the money was being spent. The British pretended to need money to support troops but the troops were stationed at ports to enforce British rule and not in the interior were the treat of attacks existed. British parliament would additional tax revenue for some imperial expenses and passed the Stamp Act in 1865 which was due on paper, newspapers, customs document, licenses, college diplomas and numerous legal forms for recovering debts, buying land or making wills. This was the beginning of censoring information as any document with unwanted comments about the British was not stamped. With the Townshend Acts (1767) taxes on glass, lead, paper, paint and tea were introduces. The colonists claimed "Taxation without representation is slavery". The boycotts of British goods leat to repealing the Stamp Act in 1766 and the new import duties were lifted in 1770 but not the tax on tea. The Tea Act of 1773 heightens the tension and finally lead to the Boston Tea Party (December 17, 1773). In reply the British passed the Coervice Act (1774) to punish Boston. This act was called Intolerable Acts by the Americans. Under this act the port of Boston was closed and the city was putted under military command. To support Boston the First Continental Congress (1774) were held in Philadelphia by fifty-six delegates from twelve colonies (Georgia was missing). By 1775 the first military actions began and in 1776 the Continental Congress declared independence. With the Paris treaty of September 3, 1783 the American Revolution came to its successful end.

Our Founding Fathers were courageous to stand up to King George in Britain and tell him NO More! We demand freedom and liberty and we are dissolving the bonds between Britain and the colonies.


Under King Obama there have been "a long train of abuses and usurpations" forced upon the people.


First, Congress passed the a massive spending package which Democrats like to refer to as Stimulus. I would like to know why since it didn't stimulate a darn thing. The Stimulus only gave us more debt. And, guess who is going to be paying for the added taxes thanks to the libs? You guessed right. The average taxpayer.


Then Obama like a good little socialist decided to centralize all the college loans and put them under the auspices of the federal government. Lord knows we couldn't have those "evil" private companies running the college loans. Heaven forbid there might be competition. You know how the government can't stand competition.


Third, we have Obama & Co deciding to sue and declare war against one of its own states. Let's see here.... The federal government is supposed to secure the borders in order to ensure our safety. The Feds job is to make sure that people come here legally and they are to stop the border jumpers from crossing over illegally. The federal government refuses to do its job. Arizona had at least one murder that occurred which was committed by an illegal immigrant. Arizona had many more illegals who were crossing over every day so they passed an immigration law. Then, Eric Holder sued the state of Arizona. The only reason the DOJ sued Arizona is because they need the illegal immigrants votes to ensure that King Barack can keep his throne and pass more freedom-hating laws or regulations.

King Obama refuses to defend a law of the land - The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). He is trying to appease those with a homosexual agenda by giving his consent to the DOJ to stop defending marriage as being defined as being between a man and woman. His refusal to defend the law of the land shows his contempt for the law within the United States.


Obamao keeps on enforcing an unconstitutional law of our land. The Patriot Act violates our Constitutional rights. He even went a step further than the Bush administration and has authorized for law abiding citizens to be groped in some very private places, like in diapers, breasts, and crotches by the TSA whenever you fly. Nothing like getting a free physical courtesy of the TSA.


Sixth, King Obama wasn't able to get congress to pass his Cap & Trade kill the economy with huge taxes on the American people tax law so he decided to bypass that little hang up in his master plan to tax us all to kingdom come, obfuscates the Constitution and has the EPA institute regulations which do pretty much the same thing that the kill the economy with huge taxes on citizens, poor and rich alike, would have done if he would have abided by the Constitution and gotten congress to pass the law. That's right, progressives despise the constitution. It only gets in their way of their Marxist plans to "transform" America into some European socialist state.


And, The Obama administration took over Chrysler and General Motors all to save their cash cow, the unions. Obama gave his unions a bailout and a huge stake in both companies. The best thing for Chrysler and General Motors would have been for the both them to go into bankruptcy and have to restructure. But, oh no!, that would have hurt the unions, reduced their pay and pensions. That couldn't be allowed under the Obama regime. The unions own the Democrat Party. Yes, the Democrat Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the unions. That is why the unions must also control our public schools. The public schools are worthless pieces of junk that have failed our youth all because of the unions. The unions get paid more and somehow the students do worse. We need to start thinking about our future - the kids - and take public schools back from the unions. The unions horrible agenda to indoctrinate our youth with Marxist beliefs must be stopped!


That's a heck of a lot of encroachments committed by King Obama. It is time for us patriots to act with the same courage as our Founders did and stand up to these liberty-hating progressives and take our country back from those who want to "transform" this country into the Socialist States of America.


Let's have some fun and celebrate July 4th. Here is some music:

James Cagney - You're a grand old flag



 Lawrence Welk Orchestra - America The Beautiful



God Bless The USA with Lee Greenwood




                                            Wishing Everyone a Happy Independence Day! 

The Founding Fathers and Slavery: Bachmann Vs. Stephanopoulos

In an interview with George Stephanopoulos last week presidential candidate Michele Bachmann made the claim that a number of the Founding Fathers opposed slavery and worked to end it.  In response Stephanopoulos replied, “Now, with respect Congresswoman, that's just not true.”  Who is correct - Bachmann or Stephanopoulos? 


I received an email outlining some of the Founding Fathers positions and thoughts on slavery. 


From WallBuilders: 

Even though the issue of slavery is often raised as a discrediting charge against the Founding Fathers, the historical fact is that slavery was not the product of, nor was it an evil introduced by, the Founding Fathers; slavery had been introduced to America nearly two centuries before the Founders. As President of Congress Henry Laurens explained: 

I abhor slavery. I was born in a country where slavery had been established by British Kings and Parliaments as well as by the laws of the country ages before my existence. . . . In former days there was no combating the prejudices of men supported by interest; the day, I hope, is approaching when, from principles of gratitude as well as justice, every man will strive to be foremost in showing his readiness to comply with the Golden Rule ["do unto others as you would have them do unto you" Matthew 7:12]. ¹

Prior to the time of the Founding Fathers, there had been few serious efforts to dismantle the institution of slavery. John Jay identified the point at which the change in attitude toward slavery began:

Prior to the great Revolution, the great majority . . . of our people had been so long accustomed to the practice and convenience of having slaves that very few among them even doubted the propriety and rectitude of it. ²

The Revolution was the turning point in the national attitude–and it was the Founding Fathers who contributed greatly to that change. In fact, many of the Founders vigorously complained against the fact that Great Britain had forcefully imposed upon the Colonies the evil of slavery. For example, Thomas Jefferson heavily criticized that British policy:

He [King George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. . . . Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce [that is, he has opposed efforts to prohibit the slave trade]. ³

Benjamin Franklin, in a 1773 letter to Dean Woodward, confirmed that whenever the Americans had attempted to end slavery, the British government had indeed thwarted those attempts. Franklin explained that . . .

. . . a disposition to abolish slavery prevails in North America, that many of Pennsylvanians have set their slaves at liberty, and that even the Virginia Assembly have petitioned the King for permission to make a law for preventing the importation of more into that colony. This request, however, will probably not be granted as their former laws of that kind have always been repealed. ⁴

Further confirmation that even the Virginia Founders were not responsible for slavery, but actually tried to dismantle the institution, was provided by John Quincy Adams (known as the "hell-hound of abolition" for his extensive efforts against that evil). Adams explained:

The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented by all the southern patriots of the Revolution; by no one with deeper and more unalterable conviction than by the author of the Declaration himself [Jefferson]. No charge of insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country [Great Britain] and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence, slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. Such was the undoubting conviction of Jefferson to his dying day. In the Memoir of His Life, written at the age of seventy-seven, he gave to his countrymen the solemn and emphatic warning that the day was not distant when they must hear and adopt the general emancipation of their slaves. ⁵

While Jefferson himself had introduced a bill designed to end slavery, ⁶ not all of the southern Founders were opposed to slavery. According to the testimony of Virginians James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and John Rutledge, it was the Founders from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia who most strongly favored slavery. ⁷
Yet, despite the support for slavery in those States, the clear majority of the Founders opposed this evil. For instance, when some of the southern pro-slavery advocates invoked the Bible in support of slavery, Elias Boudinot, President of the Continental Congress, responded:

[E]ven the sacred Scriptures had been quoted to justify this iniquitous traffic. It is true that the Egyptians held the Israelites in bondage for four hundred years, . . . but . . . gentlemen cannot forget the consequences that followed: they were delivered by a strong hand and stretched-out arm and it ought to be remembered that the Almighty Power that accomplished their deliverance is the same yesterday, today, and for ever. ⁸

Many of the Founding Fathers who had owned slaves as British citizens released them in the years following America’s separation from Great Britain (e.g., George Washington, John Dickinson, Caesar Rodney, William Livingston, George Wythe, John Randolph of Roanoke, and others). Furthermore, many of the Founders had never owned any slaves. For example, John Adams proclaimed, "[M]y opinion against it [slavery] has always been known . . . [N]ever in my life did I own a slave." ⁹
Notice a few additional examples of the strong anti-slavery sentiments held by great numbers of the Founders:

[W]hy keep alive the question of slavery? It is admitted by all to be a great evil. ¹⁰ CHARLES CARROLL, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION

As Congress is now to legislate for our extensive territory lately acquired, I pray to Heaven that they may build up the system of the government on the broad, strong, and sound principles of freedom. Curse not the inhabitants of those regions, and of the United States in general, with a permission to introduce bondage [slavery]. ¹¹ JOHN DICKINSON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA

That men should pray and fight for their own freedom and yet keep others in slavery is certainly acting a very inconsistent, as well as unjust and perhaps impious, part. ¹² JOHN JAY, PRESIDENT OF CONTINENTAL CONGRESS, ORIGINAL CHIEF JUSTICE U. S. SUPREME COURT

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. . . . And with what execration [curse] should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other. . . . And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. ¹³THOMAS JEFFERSON

Christianity, by introducing into Europe the truest principles of humanity, universal benevolence, and brotherly love, had happily abolished civil slavery. Let us who profess the same religion practice its precepts . . . by agreeing to this duty. ¹⁴RICHARD HENRY LEE, PRESIDENT OF CONTINENTAL CONGRESS; SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION

I hope we shall at last, and if it so please God I hope it may be during my life time, see this cursed thing [slavery] taken out. . . . For my part, whether in a public station or a private capacity, I shall always be prompt to contribute my assistance towards effecting so desirable an event. ¹⁵ WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY

[I]t ought to be considered that national crimes can only be and frequently are punished in this world by national punishments; and that the continuance of the slave-trade, and thus giving it a national sanction and encouragement, ought to be considered as justly exposing us to the displeasure and vengeance of Him who is equally Lord of all and who views with equal eye the poor African slave and his American master. ¹⁶ LUTHER MARTIN, DELEGATE AT CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

As much as I value a union of all the States, I would not admit the Southern States into the Union unless they agree to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade [slavery]. ¹⁷

Honored will that State be in the annals of history which shall first abolish this violation of the rights of mankind. ¹⁸ JOSEPH REED, REVOLUTIONARY OFFICER; GOVERNOR OF PENNSYLVANIA

Domestic slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity. . . . It is rebellion against the authority of a common Father. It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is an usurpation of the prerogative of the great Sovereign of the universe who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men. ¹⁹ BENJAMIN RUSH, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION

Justice and humanity require it [the end of slavery]–Christianity commands it. Let every benevolent . . . pray for the glorious period when the last slave who fights for freedom shall be restored to the possession of that inestimable right. ²⁰ NOAH WEBSTER, RESPONSIBLE FOR ARTICLE I, SECTION 8, 8 OF THE CONSTITUTION

Slavery, or an absolute and unlimited power in the master over the life and fortune of the slave, is unauthorized by the common law. . . . The reasons which we sometimes see assigned for the origin and the continuance of slavery appear, when examined to the bottom, to be built upon a false foundation. In the enjoyment of their persons and of their property, the common law protects all. ²¹ JAMES WILSON, SIGNER OF THE CONSTITUTION; U. S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE

[I]t is certainly unlawful to make inroads upon others . . . and take away their liberty by no better means than superior power.²² JOHN WITHERSPOON, SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION

For many of the Founders, their feelings against slavery went beyond words. For example, in 1774, Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush founded America’s first anti-slavery society; John Jay was president of a similar society in New York. In fact, when signer of the Constitution William Livingston heard of the New York society, he, as Governor of New Jersey, wrote them, offering:

I would most ardently wish to become a member of it [the society in New York] and . . . I can safely promise them that neither my tongue, nor my pen, nor purse shall be wanting to promote the abolition of what to me appears so inconsistent with humanity and Christianity. . . . May the great and the equal Father of the human race, who has expressly declared His abhorrence of oppression, and that He is no respecter of persons, succeed a design so laudably calculated to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. ²³

Other prominent Founding Fathers who were members of societies for ending slavery included Richard Bassett, James Madison, James Monroe, Bushrod Washington, Charles Carroll, William Few, John Marshall, Richard Stockton, Zephaniah Swift, and many more. In fact, based in part on the efforts of these Founders, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts began abolishing slavery in 1780; ²⁴ Connecticut and Rhode Island did so in 1784; ²⁵ Vermont in 1786; ²⁶ New Hampshire in 1792; ²⁷ New York in 1799; ²⁸ and New Jersey did so in 1804. ²⁹

Additionally, the reason that Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa all prohibited slavery was a Congressional act, authored by Constitution signer Rufus King ³⁰ and signed into law by President George Washington, ³¹ which prohibited slavery in those territories. ³² It is not surprising that Washington would sign such a law, for it was he who had declared:

I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]. ³³

The truth is that it was the Founding Fathers who were responsible for planting and nurturing the first seeds for the recognition of black equality and for the eventual end of slavery. This was a fact made clear by Richard Allen.
Allen had been a slave in Pennsylvania but was freed after he converted his master to Christianity. Allen, a close friend of Benjamin Rush and several other Founding Fathers, went on to become the founder of the A.M.E. Church in America. In an early address "To the People of Color," he explained:

Many of the white people have been instruments in the hands of God for our good, even such as have held us in captivity, [and] are now pleading our cause with earnestness and zeal. ³⁴

While much progress was made by the Founders to end the institution of slavery, unfortunately what they began was not fully achieved until generations later. Yet, despite the strenuous effort of many Founders to recognize in practice that "all men are created equal," charges persist to the opposite. In fact, revisionists even claim that the Constitution demonstrates that the Founders considered one who was black to be only three-fifths of a person. This charge is yet another falsehood. The three-fifths clause was not a measurement of human worth; rather, it was an anti-slavery provision to limit the political power of slavery’s proponents. By including only three-fifths of the total number of slaves in the congressional calculations, Southern States were actually being denied additional pro-slavery representatives in Congress. Based on the clear records of the Constitutional Convention, two prominent professors explain the meaning of the three-fifths clause:

[T]he Constitution allowed Southern States to count three-fifths of their slaves toward the population that would determine numbers of representatives in the federal legislature. This clause is often singled out today as a sign of black dehumanization: they are only three-fifths human. But the provision applied to slaves, not blacks. That meant that free blacks–and there were many, North as well as South–counted the same as whites. More important, the fact that slaves were counted at all was a concession to slave owners. Southerners would have been glad to count their slaves as whole persons. It was the Northerners who did not want them counted, for why should the South be rewarded with more representatives, the more slaves they held? ³⁵ THOMAS WEST

It was slavery’s opponents who succeeded in restricting the political power of the South by allowing them to count only three-fifths of their slave population in determining the number of congressional representatives. The three-fifths of a vote provision applied only to slaves, not to free blacks in either the North or South. ³⁶ WALTER WILLIAMS

Why do revisionists so often abuse and misportray the three-fifths clause? Professor Walter Williams (himself an African-American) suggested:
Politicians, news media, college professors and leftists of other stripes are selling us lies and propaganda. To lay the groundwork for their increasingly successful attack on our Constitution, they must demean and criticize its authors. As Senator Joe Biden demonstrated during the Clarence Thomas hearings, the framers’ ideas about natural law must be trivialized or they must be seen as racists. ³⁷

While this has been only a cursory examination of the Founders and slavery, it is nonetheless sufficient to demonstrate the absurdity of the insinuation that the Founders were a collective group of racists.

Catholibertarian: Thank the Catholic Founding Fathers For the First Amendment

Kevin and I have been working on our new blog Catholibertarian  and while we're still in the midst of adding links to our blogroll, political and Catholic lists we decided this would be the right time to spread the word about our blog.  If you have any suggestions for our blog please do let us know as we are new to the WordPress format.  Kevin has written a post called Thank the Catholic Founding Fathers For the First Amendment.  I hope you enjoy reading it, as it is very informative, interesting and a great piece of work IMO.

The First Amendment  has a quasi-sacred status in the minds of most Americans because that is the amendment that guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press.  On that note, it guarantees the protected status of what I am doing right now in this blog.  This tendency to imagine that the First Amendment is the product of divine inspiration in nearly the same sense if not degree as the Bible is even more prevalent in those who lean toward Libertarianism.  The latter are sometimes tempted to see the U.S. Constitution, and even more so its Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments), especially the First and Second, as akin to holy writ.  For some of us, the First Amendment is the more revered of the two, but not because of the liberty it upholds in the sphere of political speech, but because the first freedom it supports is not that of speech or the press, but the free exercise of religion.

What most people do not know is that we owe the freedom of religion we enjoy here in this constitutional republic in no small part to the efforts of Catholic, most especially Charles Carroll of Carrolton, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence.   He was a delegate from Maryland, which, of the thirteen original colonies, was the only nominally Catholic one – indeed, the other delegates from Maryland were all Episcopalians. CONTINUED 

Economic Similarities: Is the U.S. Following in the Footsteps of Ancient Rome? (Part 2)

The third video in this series takes a look at why the Founders viewed democracy with such contempt. The video defines a few important economic terms.  The fourth video compares the types of economic systems.  It also states that morality is a vital component under a Republic.

Ronald Reagan -- "Those Voices Don't Speak For The Rest of Us"

H/T Roger Hedgecock

9 Key Concepts of The Declaration of Independence

Happy Independence Day!

This video is about Gloucester's contributions that changed the tides of the Revolutionary War which helped lead to our final victory against the British. We must remember that our brave Founding Fathers and other patriots on the battlefield stood up against tyranny and did not give up when the going got tough.  They continued the fight and prevailed.  We must look to our Founding Fathers for inspiration and guidance as we fight to keep our nation free today against the evil forces that wish to bring about tyranny upon us and our nation today.  We must keep our heads held high, keep fighting the good fight, and know that with God all things are possible. 

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

Happy Independence Day!!

The Bill of Rights & Free-Enterprise