The Landmark Decision of “Dred Scott v. Sandford”

By |2024-03-05T19:53:23-06:00March 5th, 2024|Categories: American Republic, Congress, Constitution, Politics, Slavery, Supreme Court|

“Dred Scott” is a landmark decision because it answered questions regarding slavery that the Supreme Court had not previously addressed. It is also one of the most infamous decisions, furthering the great divide facing the nation regarding the question of slavery and moving the country further down the path toward the Civil War. Dred Scott [...]

Politics, Slavery, and the Civil War

By |2024-01-18T15:20:38-06:00January 18th, 2024|Categories: Civil War, Mark Malvasi, Politics, Senior Contributors, Slavery|

No episode in the American past is more susceptible to such manipulation—manipulation rather than debate—than the Civil War. On the historical question permit me to be blunt and unequivocal. There can be no doubt that slavery was central to all that divided the northern and the southern states, and that slavery was ultimately responsible for [...]

Why Juneteenth Matters

By |2023-06-18T15:15:12-05:00June 18th, 2023|Categories: Civil War, History, Slavery|

The essence of America isn't characterized by four centuries of racial subjugation but by the 247-year-long persistent and often heroic struggle by Americans of every race and creed to live up to our highest ideals. This ideal continues to inspire countless individuals, both domestically and internationally. Juneteenth stands as a symbol of this enduring inspiration. [...]

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln & the American Struggle

By |2023-05-06T22:48:28-05:00March 14th, 2023|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, American Republic, Books, Civil War, History, Slavery|

Is there room for yet another biography of Abraham Lincoln? Of course there is, especially if the biographer in question is as deft and insightful as Jon Meacham. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham (676 pages, Random House, 2022) Is there room for yet another biography of Abraham [...]

Slavery and the Founding

By |2023-01-29T17:22:01-06:00January 29th, 2023|Categories: American Founding, Bradley J. Birzer, Senior Contributors, Slavery|

From the late 1660s until about 1763, slavery grew dramatically in the American colonies, but especially in the southern colonies. Then, between 1763 and 1793, the institution declined precipitously. Why? As an institution, slavery has one of the strangest of all histories. Though Africans were sold on American soil as early as 1619, chattel slavery [...]

America’s Anti-Slavery Legacy

By |2022-07-17T16:02:34-05:00July 17th, 2022|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, Senior Contributors, Slavery|

Even mainstream liberals today accept as fact that America is and always has been a racist system, built upon the backs of slaves. Yet American history itself was deeply divisive and extremely complicated, and after all, there is a finality to the subject: In the end, the United States abolished slavery, ending the scourge forever [...]

The Issue of Slavery at the Constitutional Convention

By |2022-07-12T14:40:32-05:00July 12th, 2022|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, Constitutional Convention, Senior Contributors, Slavery|

The Constitutional Convention debated the issue of slavery over almost a week. In the end, the delegates reluctantly agreed to allow slavery for the sake of South Carolina and Georgia. We moderns and post-moderns can debate all we want, but the case is that the Convention came very close to abolishing slavery. Its acceptance of [...]

The 1619 Project & the Battleground of History

By |2022-06-06T21:05:37-05:00June 6th, 2022|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Education, History, Jamestown, Mark Malvasi, Senior Contributors, Slavery|

Nikole Hannah-Jones is right and wrong. Although the first slaves arrived in Jamestown in 1619, the year and the event carry less significance than she imagines. Although neither deceptive nor careless, she is uninterested in facts in a conventional sense. Her principal objective is not to understand the past but to rebuke the present and, [...]

The Problem of Eumaios

By |2020-10-16T12:09:09-05:00October 24th, 2020|Categories: Glenn Arbery, Great Books, Homer, Odyssey, Senior Contributors, Slavery, Wyoming Catholic College|

Refusing to dwell upon the “subjunctive abyss”—that bottomless, tormenting sense of what has been denied or taken away—Eumaios the swineherd gives his energies to what he can do and do well. He practices virtue on his own with no one else to enforce it and reminds the wandering Odysseus what real nobility is. Whatever I [...]

America Must Return to the Noble Traditions of Her Founders

By |2023-07-04T22:48:28-05:00September 27th, 2020|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Books, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, History, Politics, Slavery|

That it is the founding principles themselves to which we can turn to recover from the great evils of slavery, of the loss of virtue and moral standard, and of grotesque dehumanization should be a measure of the gratitude we owe to our Founding Fathers for their magnificent achievement. Robert R. Reilly is the author [...]

The 1619 Project: Sending the Wrong Message to African Americans?

By |2020-09-13T23:12:16-05:00September 13th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, Equality, History, Politics, Slavery|

The 1619 Project is an instrument of propaganda whose insidious subtexts aim to promulgate the narrative that not only is America uniquely racist, but the nation cannot evolve beyond its history of slavery. Therefore, if America is to truly ascend, then the fatalism of the 1619 Project must be rejected. Criticisms of the 1619 Project [...]

The Native Americans Who Owned Slaves

By |2020-07-06T17:34:23-05:00July 6th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, Civil War, History, Slavery, War|

Europeans introduced the “Five Civilized Tribes” of the southeast to the institution of racial slavery. And during the Civil War, the Five Civilized Tribes fought on both the Union and Confederate sides. This often-overlooked part of American history takes on new significance in light of today’s debates over slavery reparations and monuments to those who [...]

Blaming Adam

By |2020-07-04T01:23:42-05:00July 4th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, Christianity, Glenn Arbery, John Milton, Politics, Senior Contributors, Slavery, Wyoming Catholic College|

The origins of human things are flawed, no question, and inequalities remain. But should we not try to honor the principles of Washington or Jefferson and distinguish them from the prejudices of the day that they shared? The curriculum at Wyoming Catholic College has much wisdom to offer in the current crisis, much that should [...]

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