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 […]
Oct. 5, 2018–The following is a guest article, originally published under the title “How Famine in India Sparked the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution.” It sheds considerable light on what the Founding Fathers and American population at large saw as their possible fate if they did not resist […]
On the occasion of the anniversary of his murder, July 11, 1804 By Nancy Spannaus July 11, 2020—The traditional ceremonies in New York City honoring Alexander Hamilton on the date of his murder by Aaron Burr on July 11, 1804 have necessarily been cancelled this year. We must honor […]
By Nancy Spannaus June 14, 2020—On March 31, Representative Danny Davis (D-Ill) introduced a new bill calling for the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank. H.R. 6422 is cosponsored by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass); it has been referred to a several Congressional Committees for deliberation. The bill’s magnitude and import […]
The American Revolutionaries’ International War Against Slavery
Part I. Ben Franklin and Massachusetts Lead the Way (Part 2 is now available here.) 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 […]