Part I. Ben Franklin and Massachusetts Lead the Way By Colin Lowry March 19, 2019 In the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Adams, is a paragraph condemning King George III of Britain for the crime of promoting and enforcing the […]
A Book Review by Nancy Spannaus No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding Sean Wilentz Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2018, 349 pp. March 5, 2019—I can say without hesitation that anyone writing about the history of slavery in the United States should read […]
By Nancy Spannaus Feb. 22, 2019—George Washington deserves to be celebrated in his own right, but I am going to devote this brief Washington’s Birthday post to the Washington-Hamilton alliance. The two men shared a vision of developing this vast country into a strong continental republic, committed to the “blessings […]
By Nancy Spannaus Jan. 30, 2019—Abraham Lincoln was right when he declared that, at the time of the Declaration of Independence and the founding of the Constitution, it was widely expected that slavery was on the wane, and would soon die out. That broad sentiment is actually a matter of […]
By Nancy Spannaus Jan. 17, 2019—Some words of wisdom from our philosopher-founder Benjamin Franklin are surely appropriate in these times, and his 313th birthday—to be celebrated today—is a good time to pay them heed. Old Ben is known for shaping many aspects of our fight for independence, but one area […]
(The following was written in celebration of Alexander Hamilton’s 262nd birthday, which occurs on January 11th.) By Nancy Spannaus Jan. 9, 2019—One appropriate way to get to know and appreciate Founding Father Alexander Hamilton’s vision and accomplishments for our nation is to get acquainted with his pioneer project in manufacturing, […]
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JFK’s Conservation Policy versus Today’s Environmentalism features Kennedy’s 1963 speech in Hanford, Washington.
By Nancy Spannaus Dec. 17, 2018—New revelations have come to the fore to dramatize one of the major arguments of this blog: namely, that free trade is nothing but a genocidal looting operation, as shown by the operations of the British Empire against India. In March of this year, Columbia […]
American Dialogue: The Founders and Us, by Joseph J. Ellis. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. 283 pp. Reviewed by Edward Spannaus , November 29, 2018 This is both an ambitious and a provocative book. Joseph Ellis, who taught college-level American history for decades, takes the major debates among the […]
By Bonnie James By the Light of the Silvery Moon: A Century of Lunar Photographs National Gallery of Art July 14, 2019-January 5, 2020 July 15, 2019–The National Gallery of Art is offering a small, but fascinating exhibition titled, “By the Light of the Silvery Moon: A Century of Lunar […]
By Nancy Spannaus June 26, 2019—Historian Kate Brown presented Alexander Hamilton’s the legacy in law to a nearly full house at today’s noontime lecture at the U.S. Treasury Department. The event was part of a regular bimonthly series sponsored by the Treasury Historical Association. Members of the Alexander Hamilton Awareness […]
No National Unity Without Hamilton’s Economics
Part 1 By Nancy Spannaus March 21, 2019—In Chapter 10 of my book Hamilton Versus Wall Street, I insist that the commitment to economic progress which Hamilton’s American System policies represent, is essential to hold the United States together as a nation. The relevance of this argument to curing the […]