Jefferson’s Heart

Jefferson struggled with his love for Maria Cosway…. going as far as to illustrate his emotional agony to her in a letter- the letter detailed the tug-of-war between Jefferson’s head and his aching heart.  Jefferson was perfectly content to remain within his head, buried in his books and letters.  Maria Cosway was a special woman,

Polk’s Rise

Great men with larger-than-life personalities … do not always make the best Presidents.  Too much of their focus is directed inward, and the needs of the electorate are overlooked (see Jackson.)  Consistency is required when dealing with momentous issues. A top ten President James Knox Polk was the right man… in the right place, at the

LBJ and Civil Rights

Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964…. the most significant piece of civil rights legislation in our history.  No President in the 20th century more eloquently expressed the fight for civil rights as Johnson did in 1965, “There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem.

Current News – USS WASP – WWII Wreck Located

Originally posted on Pacific Paratrooper:
A port bow view of the ship shows her aflame and listing to starboard, 15 September 1942. Men on the flight deck desperately battle the spreading inferno. (U.S. Navy Photograph 80-G-16331, National Archives and Records Administration, Still Pictures Division, College Park, Md.) The discovery of sunken wrecks seems to hold…

Thank You, John Tyler

Originally posted on Presidential History Blog:
John Tyler The Whig party wasn’t really a political party per se, in 1840. It was more a conglomeration of frictional, factional and sectional needs and angsts, and would remain so for the rest of its short 12-year-run. The frictional part centered around towering figures: Democrat Andrew Jackson and…

History News Roundup

Slave descendants sue Harvard for ownership of photographs   Media continues hysterics over Electoral College- fails to understand it   Rare Civil War era photograph discovered by relic hunter   Democrats push for slavery reparations without historical consensus   Jimmy Carter now longest living US President  

Presidents on the Move

History is constantly evolving and changing…. so is this list.   Presidential reputations change rapidly.  George W. Bush ^  :  Loathed by modern “progressives,”  any historian worth his/her salt should have suggested patience. Presidents must not be judged immediately following their terms, nor soon after elections.  Many of Bush’s policies are now being viewed as

Madison Would Never Agree

Words James Madison never uttered…. but when considering the US Senate as it exists today, the naive can almost hear the Father of the Constitution proclaim the following lunacy with pride: So let’s describe the US Senate as it exists today… The United States Senate will be chosen by popularity contest in each state.  There

Supreme Court Justices- Mt. Rushmore

Recent discussion about the Supreme Court prompted… some thoughts about the greatest men to sit on our nation’s highest bench.   Four faces that best exemplify jurisprudence in American history. Here goes…. John Marshall: Chief Justice 1801-1835– The George Washington of justices, the first and possibly the greatest.  Marshall established all future Court behavior in Marbury

Washington on the Ides of March

  The irony that on the Ides of March… where the original western tyrant was dispatched, the world’s greatest republican (notice the small ‘r’) proved beyond any doubt his fidelity to that cause. George Washington addressed the Newburgh conspirators on March 15, 1783. At a pivotal moment, when our vulnerable government dangled by string following