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Constitution Sunday: “Publius,” The Federalist LI [James Madison]
Independent Journal (New York) February 6, 1788 “But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections of human nature?” This rhetorical question, which James Madison posed, is one that governments throughout the world—throughout history—have answered by showing that even the best-intentioned government fails where it does not take human nature into account.
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The Civil War: Jefferson Davis: Message to the Confederate Congress
April 29, 1861 With only a few weeks at the helm of the Confederate government, president Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Congress had cause for concern—but also cause for inspiration. The whole of the South (and the whole of the North) was animated: men and women were mobilizing; making their preparations to contribute to the…
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The Civil War: Benjamin F. Butler to Winfield Scott
One night in late May 1861, “three negroes”—who said they were field hands, slaves—delivered themselves to the picket line at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Fort Monroe, sat on the peninsula between the York River and James River, had at its helm Brigadier General Benjamin F. Butler. The fugitive slaves had come to the fort to…
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The Civil War: William Howard Russell: from My Diary North and South
April 17, 1861 In the weeks and months leading up to the fall of Fort Sumter, the South had been brimming with excitement for the future. Charleston, South Carolina—with newly taken Fort Sumter in its harbor—was leading the South into that future both through its rhetoric and through its actions. Enthusiasm was abound for what…
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The Civil War: George Templeton Strong: Diary, April 13-16, 1861
Throughout the months leading up to the firing on Fort Sumter, there was widespread wonder about how the country would react to such a provocation; it was bound to be a cleave dividing the country and also its communities. Generations later—with the accordion of events neatly folded and the result of the war known—it would…
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Constitution Sunday: Reply to Wilson’s Speech: “Cincinnatus” [Arthur Lee] I
Reply to Wilson’s Speech: “Cincinnatus” [Arthur Lee] I New York Journal, November 1, 1787 Following are excerpts from the article, published in response to James Wilson’s speech: “Your first attempt is to apologize for so very obvious a defect as—the omission of a declaration of rights. This apology consists in a very ingenious discovery; that…
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The Aftermath of the War of 1812
As news arrived in America on February 13, 1815 that the Treaty of Ghent was finalized and that peace between America and Britain was complete, Americans had a complete change of mind. Rather than dwell on the burning of Washington, D.C. or the humiliation of Britain’s invasion, Americans relished the victory of General Andrew Jackson…
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Wrapping Up the War of 1812
By the end of the War of 1812, President James Madison had weathered what is likely one of the tumultuous years that any president has had to endure. The British had landed a force, marched on Washington, D.C., and burned the White House. President Madison had trusted his Secretary of War John Armstrong when he…
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America in 1815: Slavery
By 1815, America was already split between those states that were taking steps to eliminate slavery and those states who were fortifying their support of slavery. As the Founding Fathers had predicted, a chasm was beginning to open in the United States.
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America in 1815: The Economy
The economy of the early United States would be familiar to modern Americans in some respects but also hard to recognize, given the development of the American economy in the past two centuries.
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America in 1815: The Jeffersonian Republicans
The Republican ideology, created and led by Jefferson, manifested itself in the generation after the Founding Fathers.
Last Best Hope of Earth 