Tag Archive for ‘Civil War’
Don’t Know Much About® Thomas Jefferson
Among America’s iconic Founding Fathers, is there a more complicated and contradictory figure than Thomas Jefferson? Scientist, humanist, Enlightenment thinker, writer, architect, politician. He was all these things. The confusion over this genius comes from one basic question: How could the man who wrote, “All Men are Created Equal” and “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit [...]
Don’t Know Much About® “His Accidency,” John Tyler
It is quite possible that all you know about the 10th President, John Tyler, is that he is the hind-part of a memorable campaign slogan: Tippecanoe and Tyler too! John Tyler was born this day, March 29, in 1790, at Greenway, a James River plantation in Charles City County, Virginia, between Richmond and Williamsburg. The [...]
Today in History: “We the People” (v 2.0)
On March 11, 1861, the delegates at the Congress of the Confederate States of America, meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, adopted a Constitution. Working under duress, they used the U.S. Constitution almost verbatim as their template. But they made some changes… What was the difference between the Confederate and U.S. Constitutions? One week after Lincoln’s inaugural address, [...]
Sugaring Time and the Civil War
This year, as the 150th anniversary of the Civil War approaches, the maple sugar season has a different meaning. Some 70 years before the war began on April 12, 1861, people had looked to maple sugar –both as a political and economic weapon against slavery.
“We are not enemies but friends.”
“That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events and are glad of any pretext to do it I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I [...]
Today in History: The Birthday of the Confederacy
The Confederacy was officially born on February 4, 1861 when six breakaway states created the Confederate States of America. What was different about the Confederate Constitution?
Don’t Know Much About® THE STONO REBELLION
For those still stuck with the Gone With the Wind view of American slavery, September 9 is the anniversary of one of the largest and most violent slave insurrections in American History.
Today in History: Don’t Know Much About® New York’s Bloody Draft Riots
On July 13, 1863, New York City exploded in a four-day long murderous riot, still considered one of the deadliest urban riots in American history. The cause of the riots–violent opposition to the Civil War draft law.
