Sovereign Rights

Karl Marx, completes “The Communist Manifesto.” He not only advocates economic and political changes; he advocates moral and spiritual changes as well. He believes the family should be abolished, and that all children should be raised by a central authority. He expresses his attitude toward God by saying: “We must war against all prevailing ideas of religion, of the state, of country, of patriotism. The idea ...

One of the first mentions of communism in print appaears in the New-York Daily Tribune on August 25, 1843, page 2: “Social Movement.–We learn from the Onondaga Standard that a company of Communists, or advocates of the doctrine that no individual has an exclusive right to any portion of the earth or its products, have made a contract for a tract of land near Skaneateles, in that County, ...

On October 2, 1835, the growing tensions between Mexico and Texas erupt into violence when Mexican soldiers attempt to disarm the people of Gonzales, sparking the Texan war for independence. Texas–or Tejas as the Mexicans called it–had technically been a part of the Spanish empire since the 17th century. However, even as late as the 1820s, there were only about 3,000 Spanish-Mexican settlers in Texas, and ...

My Children: I am sorry to have heard that you have been listening to bad counsel. You know me, and you know that I would not deceive, nor advise you to do anything that was unjust or injurious. Open your ears and attend to what I shall now say to you. They are the words of a friend, and the words of truth. The white people ...

"Removal" of the Native people east of the Mississippi to lands in the west as a policy of the United States originated with Thomas Jefferson, who was elected President in 1801. Jefferson made a deal with the state of Georgia in 1802, promising to secure the title to all Cherokee land within the state in exchange for Georgia giving up it's claim on territory that later ...

Francis Scott Key penned the words to the US National Anthem after watching the bombardment for 25 hours and seeing “Bombs bursting in air, missiles, so much debris, he strained to see. Was the flag still there? He couldn’t see a thing. All night long, he couldn’t. At the crack of dawn, he ran out to the banister, and he looked, straining his eyes, but all ...

The first 10 amendments to the Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. Written by James Madison in response to calls from several states for greater constitutional protection for individual liberties, the Bill of Rights lists specific prohibitions on governmental power. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason, strongly influenced Madison. One of the many points of contention between Federalists and Anti-Federalists was the Constitution’s lack of a bill ...

In this James Madison speech to the First Congress, Madison proposes twenty amendments to the United States Constitution. The Constitution's acceptance by the people of America had not been easy. Many people did not think it adequately protected their rights from infringement by the government. In order to persuade these people, known as Anti-Federalists, to accept the Constitution, the Federalist party promised they would add a ...

William Wilberforce was a member of the British Parliament who converted to Christianity and later became an abolitionist. As a Christian, he sought to reform the evils within himself and the world and since one of the glaring moral issues of his day was slavery, he read up on the subject and met some anti-slavery activists. On May 12, 1789, he delivered his Abolition Speech before ...

Francis Marion, the inspiration for Benjamin Martin's character in the movie The Patriot, was much more than a knife-between-the-teeth warrior; he's a man who had obviously thought deeply about the local political economy. In one passage, Marion observes that the white population of his state “form but two classes, the rich and the poor.” The poor, he continues, might not be slaves, but monetarily speaking, they ...