Last Best Hope of Earth

Tag: Revolution

  • The Civil War: William G. Brownlow to R.H. Appleton

    November 29, 1860

    Knoxville, Tennessee

    When the United States faced the prospect of disunion, in the fall of 1860, there was virtually no precedent to which Americans could look. This wasn’t a matter of policy differences: states were debating whether to leave the Union. And many felt that it was inherently wrong and tried to articulate why this situation was different from the American Revolution—why the North was not tyrannical toward the South in the same way that England had been tyrannical toward the colonies—and thus why secession was not warranted. William G. Brownlow, of eastern Tennessee, was one who was against secession and sent a letter to R.H. Appleton, a friend and former subscriber of Brownlow’s newspaper, unpacking the ways in which those states were wrong to secede.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] I

    Answers to Mason’s “Objections”: “Marcus” [James Iredell] I

    Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal (Virginia), February 20, 1788

    Following are excerpts from James Iredell’s responses to George Mason’s “Objections” to the Constitution:

    “IIId. [George Mason’s] Objection. ‘The Senate have the power of altering all money bills, and of originating appropriations of money, and the salaries of the officers of their own appointment, in conjunction with the President of the United States (more…)

  • America in 1848

    154
    John Calhoun.

    In 1848, when word spread to America that a revolution was breaking out in France, President James Polk wrote: “The great principles of popular sovereignty which were proclaimed in 1776 by the immortal author of our Declaration of Independence, seem now to be in the course of rapid development throughout the world.” James Knox Polk to Richard Rush, April 18, 1848, quoted in Michael Morrison, “American Reactions to European Revolutions, 1848-1852,” Civil War History 49 (June 2003): 117.

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  • Constitution Sunday: Jefferson Replies to Madison

    011914efc09968f8736c1d523526ff1a Read today’s Constitution Sunday in Russian.

    Thomas Jefferson Replies to Madison

    Paris, December 20, 1787

    Following are excerpts from Thomas Jefferson’s letter to James Madison:

    “I like the power given the Legislature to levy taxes, and for that reason solely approve of the greater house being chosen by the people (more…)