Category: The Historical Muse

Thoughts on history and the historical profession. Clio is the muse of history–this category title is a play on that concept.

Charles (Chuck) Colson (1931-2012)

  

When Chuck Colson broke free from his earthly body this past Saturday, the evangelical world lost one of its foremost spokesmen. He didn’t start out as a Christian leader; in fact, he was considered a political hatchet man and became embroiled in the Watergate controversy, over which he went to prison. But his life changed dramatically. I remember the events of Watergate quite clearly. Just out of college, I followed the fallout from the foolish break-in at the Democrat headquarters… Read more »

Lexington, Concord, & Freedom

  

On this date 237 years ago—April 19, 1775—riders spread throughout the Massachusetts countryside warning citizens that the British Regulars were coming out of Boston. Why the warning? Those troops had two goals. The first was to capture “rebel” ringleaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock at Lexington where they were staying, and send them to Britain to be hanged. The second was to take possession of the area’s militia stores in a town called Concord. They accomplished neither, but they did… Read more »

Honoring Karl Marx: Is That Really What We Want to Do?

  

Since April 15th came on a Sunday this year, today is the filing deadline for federal income taxes. This has become so much a part of life that most Americans probably don’t realize it wasn’t always this way. The federal income tax didn’t exist for the first 137 years of the republic [except for a short time during the Civil War]. Then in 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution [the ratification of which is still suspect historically]… Read more »

The Pocahontas Moment

  

Most of my posts deal with current events, but as a historian, I want to highlight key moments in history. Today, for instance, is the anniversary of a special moment in American colonial history: the Powhatan princess Pocahontas married English settler John Rolfe in 1614. Why is this so important? Pocahontas’s father, Chief Powhatan, had tried to wipe out the Jamestown settlement by starvation just four years earlier. The two cultures weren’t meshing well at all. But when Rolfe and… Read more »

Obamacare & the Supremes

  

No, my title today is not the name of a new rock band. Today marks the opening arguments on the constitutionality of Obamacare before the Supreme Court. Good news would be a decision declaring it unconstitutional. Bad news would be a decision upholding it. But the worst news of all is that it comes down to nine people who may determine this for the whole nation, regardless of the ruling. We have resigned ourselves to the idea that when the… Read more »

Redeeming Rutherford B. Hayes

  

Last week, President Obama made fun of one of his predecessors, Rutherford B. Hayes, who served as president from 1877-1881. In a campaign speech—which is the description of any and all speeches he makes—Obama referred to people who disagree with his energy policies as those who would have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society if they had lived at the time of Columbus. Now, never mind that no one of any knowledge during Columbus’s life span believed the… Read more »

Reagan & Chambers on the Liberty Fund Blog

  

The names Ronald Reagan and Whittaker Chambers show up frequently in this blog. I was asked to contribute a piece on them at the Liberty Fund blog. It ran yesterday. So in lieu of my usual blog today, I’m linking to Liberty Fund so you can enjoy [hopefully] that piece. Just go to http://libertylawsite.org/post/ronald-reagan-whittaker-chambers-and-the-dialogue-of-liberty/ Chambers was pessimistic about the West’s survival; he didn’t think we still have the moral underpinnings to combat evil. Reagan was more optimistic; he believed freedom… Read more »