RIP Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)

Neil Armstrong was a class act. As the first man to walk on the moon, he was quiet, reserved, never sought notoriety and didn’t crave attention. He preferred to live a peaceful life back home in Ohio after leaving the astronaut corps.

As a young man, he earned an engineering degree at Purdue University, served in the Navy for three years as an aviator, including 78 combat missions during the Korean War, and then became an experimental aircraft test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base as a civilian. During his time there, he flew the X-15 rocket plane right to the edge of space, more than 207,000 feet above the earth.

In 1962, Armstrong joined NASA in its second group of astronauts, dubbed “the New Nine,” which also included Jim Lovell, Frank Borman, John Young, Ed White, and Pete Conrad. Continue reading “RIP Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)” →

August 27, 2012 1

A Historical Take on the New Gun Debate

It seems that every time some nut goes on a shooting spree, politicians crank up the tried-and-true gun control argument. The recent Colorado killings gave liberals yet more ammunition (pardon the pun) to threaten our sacred gun rights.

What many politicians seem to have forgotten, if they ever knew to start with, is that our rights come from Almighty God; the government never bestowed them upon us. Therefore, the government can never take them away. Those that do are nothing more than tyrants, pure and simple.

The concept of natural rights was so important that the Anti-Federalists insisted, upon ratifying the new Constitution, that a Bill of Rights be included. The Second Amendment is quite clear: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Continue reading “A Historical Take on the New Gun Debate” →

August 8, 2012 2

Drought 1887 versus Drought 2012: A Lesson from Grover Cleveland

Droughts periodically strike the United States and this year is no different, as a severe calamity has affected at least half the country, the worst, at least so far, since 1956. The House of Representatives recently passed a one-year relief bill, yet the Senate adjourned for August recess without acting on it. Senate Democrats have already passed a massive agriculture bill that totals nearly $1 trillion over a decade and want the House to do likewise.

So the question is not if there will be relief, but only how much relief will be doled out from Washington. It wasn’t always this way. During the late 1880’s, a severe drought struck Texas. Congress, growing with progressive-minded members, sought to help, since no organization like the notoriously inept, incompetent, and corrupt FEMA existed in those days. Continue reading “Drought 1887 versus Drought 2012: A Lesson from Grover Cleveland” →

August 3, 2012 0

Independence Forever!

On a warm summer afternoon, June 30, 1826, nearly fifty years to the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a small, informal delegation led by the Reverend George Whitney paid a visit to 90 year-old John Adams in his Quincy, Massachusetts home. In four days the town would celebrate half a century of freedom from British rule.

Though the Founding Father was very old and feeble, and certainly unable to attend the ceremony, the delegation sought from him a toast to be read on his behalf. Seated in his library, the former President gave them a simple phrase, “Independence forever!” Astounded, the visitors asked if he might like to add something to his meager statement, to which Adams replied, “Not a word.”

What President Adams understood, that his visitors obviously did not, was that his toast was far from simple; it was a powerful declaration of American sovereignty. Such a treasure was priceless and Adams had lived through the entire struggle to gain it. He desired nothing more than to see the United States of America, a free and independent nation, endure throughout the ages. Continue reading “Independence Forever!” →

July 4, 2012 0

The Return of Sedition

“The whole aim of practical politics,” wrote famed journalist H. L. Mencken, “is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Truer words were never spoken, which begs important questions: Will our “War on Terror” ever end? Will our need for national security ever diminish? Most likely not, as Washington is always on the lookout for more ways to protect us from our “enemies.” As Vice President Biden told recent graduates at West Point, “Prepare for new threats.”

But new laws designed for our safety threaten to reach deeper and deeper into our private lives with more intrusive surveillance, as many in our government have taken to heart words attributed to Cicero, “In times of war, the law falls silent.” Continue reading “The Return of Sedition” →

June 20, 2012 0

Clearing Up the Confusion of Party Ideology

When discussing the history of the two major political parties and their ideologies, most people have a tendency to get very confused and with good reason.

Both major parties of today have their origins in the early 1790s, coming out of disputes in George Washington’s Cabinet between Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson opposed Hamilton’s entire fiscal program, arguing for a limited federal government and a strict interpretation of the Constitution. Hamilton wanted the new government to expand beyond its constitutional powers, the Constitution becoming what he hoped would be a “fail and worthless fabric.”

Though the Founders yearned for a nation without parties, or factions, as they called them, inevitably they did form. One was the Federalist Party, founded by Hamilton, which lasted from 1792 to 1816, the last year it ran a candidate for President, having succumbed to the might of Jefferson as well as its opposition to the War of 1812. The other was Jefferson’s Republican Party (sometimes referred to as the Democratic-Republicans), lasting from 1792 to 1824. The two parties in existence today can be traced to these two original organizations. Continue reading “Clearing Up the Confusion of Party Ideology” →

May 29, 2012 0

Safeguarding Our Minds

This column appeared in the Laurel Leader Call (Laurel, MS) on May 22, 2012:

“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” So said Thomas Jefferson, the architect of American liberty and its greatest champion. Throughout his entire life, he fought every attempt by government to control the lives of the people, in thought, speech, and deed.

Today we should be just as vigilant, whether a form of tyranny originates in Washington, Jackson, or the local schoolhouse. We must be ever mindful that state and local governments can be just as tyrannical as Washington, DC. Continue reading “Safeguarding Our Minds” →

May 25, 2012 0

A Short History of Presidential Second Terms

This column was published in the Laurel Leader Call (Laurel, MS) on May 15, 2012:

As Barack Obama seeks a second term in the White House, one must wonder why he would even want one. Amazingly, almost every presidential second term has been wrought with severe problems, especially in our modern era. And almost every chief executive seeks to go home long before the final curtain closes on his final administration.

The only exceptions to second term malaise are George Washington, who did face serious public opposition and outrage over the hated Jay Treaty in 1794, though most of the anger was directed towards John Jay, and James Monroe, whose first term was wrought with several crises – Missouri’s admission as a slave state and the Panic of 1819, but his second was relatively quiet.

We may also count Calvin Coolidge, as a second Harding-Coolidge term, where the Roaring Twenties was in full swing, and Silent Cal saw unemployment reach the unheard of level of just one percent in 1926.

As for the rest, there was no smooth sailing on the turbulent sea of statecraft. Continue reading “A Short History of Presidential Second Terms” →

May 24, 2012 0

Jeffersonian Solutions for America’s Problems

The United States faces an abundance of problems, a weak economy, an abundance of public expenditures, out of control entitlements, and an over-expansive foreign policy, to name a few. These issues are getting worse, not better, with no end in sight. In recent decades, politicians of nearly every conceivable stripe have offered solutions, all to no avail. The only real solution to America’s woes is a return to Jeffersonian principles.

Grover_Cleveland_Theodore_Roosevelt_DRFrancis — Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and D.R. Francis standing on a porch circa 1903. Courtesy of the POTUS Flickr archive.

Since the days of Grover Cleveland, who ended the harsh Panic of 1893 in less than a full term in office, the federal government has used Keynesian economic theory, or intervention, to fight every economic downturn. The results have been less than spectacular. What began as a severe recession in 1929 became the “Great Depression,” the worst economic calamity in American history. Many people will be surprised to learn that the Great Depression came after the government stepped in with its bag of tricks. It did not end until the latter half of the 1940s.

After the Panic of 2008, the government bailed out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion. In 2009, the Obama administration kicked in another $800 billion in a stimulus designed to jump-start the sagging economy. A total of $1.5 trillion in stimulus money has been apportioned. The economy is still in a state of mild depression with a net job loss during the Obama presidency. Continue reading “Jeffersonian Solutions for America’s Problems” →

May 21, 2012 1

Grover Cleveland and the Same-sex Marriage Debate: State vs. Federal Power

As a historian of American politics, I am most often asked how this or that historical figure would think about modern political issues. Many times the answer is an easy one, but others not so much. The issue of gay marriage would certainly fall into the latter category.

So, you might ask, how would Grover Cleveland, as President of the United States, have dealt with the issue in the late 19^th century?

The subject of same-sex marriage was certainly not on anyone’s lips in his day, nor can it be found in any letters or papers to my knowledge. But we can ascertain Cleveland’s probable thoughts on the matter by understanding his political thought. He was a steadfast Jeffersonian President who believed in the cardinal principles of that philosophy, two of which were the absolute will of the people and respect for the individual states.

As Thomas Jefferson had vowed in his first inaugural address in 1801, his administration would support “the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies.” President Cleveland also swore, on numerous occasions, to maintain respect for the states in their independent and sovereign character.

The state governments control the process of marriage by issuing licenses and sanctioning the procedure. Nowhere in the US Constitution is marriage mentioned, thereby making it off limits to meddling by Washington politicians. So for Cleveland, the question should be left up to the people of the states to decide, expressing their will at the local ballot box.

And as of this writing, the people in 32 states have voted down same-sex marriage, many of them overwhelmingly so, representing every region in the country. Where it has been put to popular vote, not one single state has accepted it.

Mississippi had the highest vote totals against the practice, with 86 percent. Tennessee and Alabama also had vote totals over 80 percent. That was to be expected in the Bible Belt South. But other reliable Republican states have also voted, unsurprisingly, to forbid it, many with totals in the 60s and 70s.

Yet what has been surprising to many is the fact that the mostly Democratic states of Colorado (56 percent), Nevada (69 percent), Wisconsin (59 percent), Michigan (59 percent), and Hawaii (69 percent), overwhelmingly rejected it. Even California, where one would think it had a fighting chance of passage, voted it down with 52 percent of the vote.

The people of the states have spoken on this issue, and the results of their suffrage should put an end to the debate. Grover Cleveland would have wholeheartedly agreed.

May 17, 2012 0