Presidents’ Day – George Washington’s Birthday – American Minute with Bill Federer
The tallest was Abraham Lincoln at 6’4” and shortest was James Madison at 5’4”.
The heaviest President was William Howard Taft at 332 lbs.
Four died in office: Harrison, Taylor, Harding, Franklin Roosevelt. Four were assassinated: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy. One resigned, Nixon.
The youngest elected President was John F. Kennedy, at age 43, but the youngest to serve was actually Theodore Roosevelt, who assumed the office at age 42, when William McKinley was assassinated.
The oldest person elected President is Donald J. Trump at age 78 and 7 months.
But did you know President’s Day is actually George Washington’s Birthday?
Washington’s birthday was recognized by an Act of Congress for government offices in Washington, D.C., in 1879, and for all federal offices in 1885.
In 1971, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act to create more three day weekends moved the observance of Washington’s birthday to the third Monday in February.
Abraham Lincoln was also born in February so many States include him in the observance, and still other States include all the Presidents.
George Washington was born FEBRUARY 22, 1732. He was;
- unanimously chosen as the Army’s Commander-in-Chief;
- unanimously chosen as President of the Constitutional Convention;
- unanimously chosen as the first U.S. President;
- unanimously re-elected to a second term.
George Washington was an Anglican, and, after the Revolution, an Episcopalian.
George’s great-great-grandfather, Reverend Lawrence Washington, was an Anglican minister who taught at Oxford.
Lawrence and his wife, Amphyllis Twigen, had a son named John.
When the Puritans won the English Civil War in 1651, Anglican ministers were demoted. Lawrence was reduced to being an assistant minister – a vicar – at an impoverished parish in Essex, England.
It was during this time that John Washington, George Washington’s great-grandfather, apprenticed as a merchant in London.
He sailed as second officer on a ship to the Colony of Virginia to purchase tobacco.
In 1657, when a storm partially sank their vessel in the Potomac River, John swam ashore.
While the ship was being repaired, John stayed at the home of a planter Colonel Nathaniel Pope, and fell in love with his daughter, Anne. John never returned to England.
John and Anne married, and her father gave them 700 acres in Westmoreland County.
John Washington became a successful planter and a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses.
He was a militia leader during Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion against Governor William Berkeley in 1676.
A local Anglican church was renamed “Washington” in honor of John Washington.
When John died, he left to the church a tablet of the Ten Commandments. His Will stated:
“In the Name of God, Amen. I, John Washington, of Washington Parish, in the County of Westmoreland, in Virginia, gentleman, being of good and perfect memory, thanks be unto Almighty God for it,
and calling to remembrance the uncertain state of this transitory life, that all flesh must yield unto death, do make, constitute, and ordain this my last will and testament …
… First, being heartily sorry, from the bottom of my heart, for my sins past, most humbly desiring forgiveness of the same from the Almighty God, my Savior and Redeemer, in whom and by the merits of Jesus Christ, I trust and believe assuredly to be saved, and to have full remission and forgiveness of all my sins,
and that my soul with my body at the general resurrection shall rise again with joy.”
The oldest of John Washington’s sons was Lawrence, the grandfather of George Washington.
Lawrence married Mildred Warner, the daughter of Col. Augustine Warner, Jr., an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II.
Lawrence and Mildred had three children, the second being Augustine, who would become George Washington’s father.
When Lawrence died in 1698, Mildred married George Gale and moved back to England with her children.
When Mildred died, a relative in America petitioned to get custody of her children, including Augustine, and they were returned to Virginia in 1704.
Augustine Washington served as a vestryman in the Anglican Truro Parish.
He and his wife Jane Butler had two sons live to adulthood, Lawrence and Augustine Jr.
Both Lawrence and Augustine, Jr., went back to England to study at the prestigious Appleby Grammar School.
Jane died in 1729.
Augustine married Mary Ball in 1731, and together they had 6 children, with the oldest, George Washington, being born February 22, 1732.
Augustine died in 1743 when George was only 11-years-old.
George hand copied the Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, 1744, which included Rule #110:
“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
George’s older half-brother Lawrence fought in the British navy under Admiral Edward Vernon, who had captured Porto Bello, Panama, from Spain in 1739.
When Lawrence returned to Virginia in 1742, he named his farm after his navy Admiral — Mount Vernon.
Lawrence married Anne Fairfax.
Her father, Col. William Fairfax, had been Collector of Customs in Barbados, and Chief Justice and Governor of the Bahamas, as well as a first cousin of Thomas Fairfax, who was the largest land owner in America with five million acres.
Lawrence arranged for George, at age 15, to begin a career in the British navy as a cabin boy, but his mother, Mary Ball Washington, refused.
George complied with his mother’s wishes and returned home.
In 1748, Lawrence arranged for 16-year-old George Washington to be employed by Thomas Fairfax to survey the western area of his vast estate.
In 1751, Lawrence Washington contracted tuberculosis.
In hopes that a change of climate would help him recover, doctors recommended he travel to Barbados, where his father-in-law had been Collector of Customs.
He brought along his 17-year-old half-brother George.
This was the only time that George left the American continent.
In Barbados, George contracted smallpox, but recovered. This providentially inoculated George so that he was immune during the Revolutionary War, where it is estimated that more soldiers died of smallpox than in battle.
Lawrence died in 1752 and his Mount Vernon estate eventually was inherited by George, making him one of the youngest and largest landowners in Virginia.
George became vestryman in Truro Parish, and was godfather in baptism to several nephews and a niece.
From 1753-1758, George served in the French and Indian War.
He was a colonel under General Edward Braddock, Commander of the British forces in America.
George miraculously survived the Battle of Monongehela in 1755.Braddock was killed, leaving George in command.
On July 18, 1755, Washington wrote from Fort Cumberland to his brother, John A. Washington:
“By the All-Powerful Dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, although death was leveling my companions on every side of me!”
Colonel Washington wrote to Fort Loudoun, April 17, 1758:
“The last Assembly … provided for a chaplain to our regiment. On this subject I had often without any success applied to Governor Dinwiddie. I now flatter myself, that your honor will be pleased to appoint a sober, serious man for this duty. Common decency, Sir, in a camp calls for the services of a divine.”
In 1759, George fell in love Martha “Patsy” Dandridge Custis, a 26-year-old widow and mother with two children, John “Jacky” Parke Custis and Martha “Patsy” Parke Custis.
Martha had inherited five plantations totaling 17,500 acres.
Martha’s daughter Patsy died at age 16 of an epileptic seizure in 1773, while George held her in his arms. He wrote:
“The sweet, innocent girl entered into a more happy and peaceful abode than she had met in the afflicted path she had hitherto trod.”
In 1775, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, George Washington was commissioned as the General of the Continental Army.
He wrote to Martha, June 18, 1775:
“My Dearest … It has been determined in Congress, that the whole army raised for the defense of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take up command of it.
You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you, in the most solemn manner that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it …
But as it has been a kind of Destiny, that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose …
I shall rely, therefore, confidently on that Providence which has heretofore preserved and been bountiful to me, not doubting but that I shall return safely to you in the fall.”
On July 4, 1775, General Washington ordered:
“The General … requires … observance of those articles of war … which forbid profane cursing, swearing and drunkenness; And … requires … punctual attendance of Divine Services.”
On October 2, 1775, General George Washington issued the order:
“Any … soldier who shall hereafter be detected playing at toss-up, pitch, and hustle, or any other games of chance … shall without delay be confined and punished …
The General does not mean by the above to discourage sports of exercise or recreation, he only means to discountenance and punish gaming.”
On February 26, 1776, General Washington issued the orders:
“All … soldiers are positively forbid playing at cards and other games of chance. At this time of public distress men may find enough to do in the service of their God and their country, without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality.”
Washington acknowledged God throughout the Revolution, as he wrote on May 15, 1776:
“The Continental Congress having ordered Friday the 17th instant to be observed as a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, humbly to supplicate the mercy of Almighty God,
that it would please Him to pardon all our manifold sins and transgressions, and to prosper the arms of the United Colonies, and finally establish the peace and freedom of America upon a solid and lasting foundation;
the General commands all officers and soldiers to pay strict obedience to the orders of the Continental Congress;
that, by their unfeigned and pious observance of their religious duties, they may incline the Lord and Giver of victory to prosper our arms.”
On July 2, 1776, from his Head Quarters in New York, General Washington issued his General Orders:
“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own;
whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them.
The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.
Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore to resolve to conquer or die …”
He continued:
“Our own country’s honor calls upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world.
Let us rely upon the goodness of the cause, and the aid of the Supreme Being in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions.”
When the Declaration of Independence was written, a copy was rushed out to Washington, who was fortifying New York City.
He had it read to his troops, then ordered chaplains placed in each regiment, stating July 9, 1776:
“The General hopes and trusts, that every officer and man, will endeavour so to live, and act, as becomes a Christian Soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his country.”
At the Battle of Brandywine, September 1777, Washington and Polish Count Casimir Pulaski, Father of the American Calvary, were scouting in the woods.
British sharpshooter Patrick Ferguson reportedly had Washington in his sights but refused to shoot him in the back.
As recorded in The Writings of George Washington (March 10, 1778, 11:83-84, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934), George Washington ordered:
“At a General Court Marshall … Lieutt. Enslin of Colo. Malcom’s Regiment tried for attempting to commit sodomy, with John Monhort a soldier…and do sentence him to be dismiss’d the service with Infamy.
His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief approves the sentence and with Abhorrence and Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Liett. Enslin to be drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning by all the Drummers and Fifers in the Army never to return.”
General Washington wrote at Valley Forge, May 2, 1778:
“To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to laud the more distinguished Character of Christian.”
To the Delaware Indian Chiefs who brought three youths to be trained in American schools, General Washington stated, May 12, 1779:
“You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ.”
The tremendous victory at the Battle of Yorktown, October 19, 1781, securing America’s independence, was personally bittersweet for Washington, as his wife’s son, John Parke Custis, who had been an aide-de-camp, died there of camp fever, November 5, 1781.
After the Battle of Yorktown, toward the end of the war, many soldiers had not been paid in years, as the Continental Congress had no power to tax.
Disgruntled officers plotted a Newburgh Conspiracy to force Congress to give them back pay.
This was dangerous, because a show of disunity could have persuaded British to renew fighting.
Washington surprised the conspiracy by showing up at their meeting in New York, March 15, 1783.
Taking a note from his pocket, he put on reading glasses, which few had seen him wear, and read:
“Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country …”
Becoming aware of his personal sacrifice, officers’ hearts melted. He urged them not to open the floodgates of civil discord.
With this one speech, the conspiracy collapsed.
Major General David Cobb, who was an aide-de-camp to Washington, wrote of the Newburgh affair:
“I have ever considered that the United States are indebted for their republican form of government solely to the firm and determined republicanism of George Washington at this time.”
Though never having children of his own, George agreed to adopt John Parke Custis’ two young children as his own: Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis, whose daughter, Mary Anna, married Robert E. Lee.
When the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate for the new nation George Washington agreed to preside over the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
He opened the Constitutional Convention with the line:
“The event is in the hand of God.”
In 1789, he was sworn in as the first President of the United States.
President Washington thanked God for the Constitution, October 3, 1789:
“Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God …
I do recommend … rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks, for … the favorable interpositions of His Providence … we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war … for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government.”
On August 15, 1787, in a letter from Philadelphia to the Marquis de Lafayette, Washington wrote:
“I am not less ardent in my wish that you may succeed in your plan of toleration in religious matters.
Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church with that road to Heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest and easiest, and the least liable to exception.”
Washington sent a letters to the Jewish Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, and in Savannah, Georgia, stating:
“May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven.”
In 1794, during the Whiskey Rebellion, Washington became the only sitting President, as Commander-in-Chief, to lead the United States Army into the field.
The insurrection dissolved and Washington forgave the insurrectionists. This was in sharp contrast to the harsh behavior of European kings.
Washington chose only to served two terms as President, leaving an example which every succeeding President follow till Franklin Roosevelt, necessitating the 22nd Amendment.
Twice Washington had supreme power, — as the General who defeated the most powerful army in the world, and as President who could have served for life; and twice he gave it up.
As the early country took shape, partisan politics became increasingly vicious, with Washington even being the victim of ungracious attacks.
He warned how ambitious politicians would be tempted to use crises as opportunities to usurp power.
In his Farewell Address, 1796, Washington warned of those who would usurp power and rule through executive orders:
“Disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an Individual … (who) turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty …
The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism …
Let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
The precedent (of usurpation) must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield.”
Earlier, in 1783, the American-born painter Benjamin West was in England painting the portrait of King George III.
When the King asked what General Washington planned to do now that he had won the war.
West replied:
“They say he will return to his farm.”
King George exclaimed:
“If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
Poet Robert Frost once wrote:
“I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few men in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.”
Charles Francis Adams, the grandson of John Adams, wrote:
“More than all, and above all, Washington was master of himself. If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self when in the most elevated positions for influence and example.”
Washington continually had toothaches. By the time of his Inauguration, he had only one tooth.
Several dentists made make-shift dentures for him.
Washington had slaves from inheritance, marriage, and purchase, as did almost half of the founders.
As the influence of Baptists, Methodists and Quakers spread, many founders abandoned slavery — similar to today, how more and more pro-abortion supporters are becoming pro-life.
Washington freed his mulatto man William:
“And to my Mulatto man William (calling himself William Lee) I give immediate freedom … I allow him an annuity of thirty dollars during his natural life … & this I give him as a testimony of my sense of his attachment to me, and for his faithful services during the Revolutionary War.”
In his Will, Washington freed the rest of his slaves upon his wife Martha’s death. Martha freed them the year after Washington died.
In his Will, George also made provision that elderly and sick slaves were to be supported by his estate in perpetuity.
On May 10, 1786, George Washington wrote from to Marquis de Lafayette:
“Your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view of emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity …
Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country.”
George Washington added a warning in his Farewell Address, 1796:
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.
In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness.”
—
The Weekly Sam: God Is a Salesman by Sam Blumenfeld
I picked up this little book the other day in a discount bookstore. Intrigued by the title,
God Is a Salesman, I started thumbing through it and came across this thought-provoking
passage.
Success in life and the ability to sell are inexorably bound. Whether you are
moving Chevies off a showroom floor, inspiring others to achieve a goal, or
spreading your philosophy on how best to engage in real estate investing, you
have to sell. You have to educate. You have to influence.
It was enough to get me to buy the book. The author, Mark Stevens, is not only a
fervent believer in God, he is also a very successful marketer who has learned to sell by
emulating The Master. He writes:
“When I say God is a salesman, I mean an influencer,
an educator, and a force that enables us to bridge the gap between what we see and what
may well be the greater truth.”
When I finished reading the book, I realized that we are all salesmen and always selling
something. As a writer, I am constantly selling my ideas to publishers, selling my books
after they’ve been published, selling my knowledge, intelligence, and experience. That
is the essential activity in a free society based on free enterprise. In a communist society
salesmanship is not needed. It is forbidden. You are told what to do, where to work,
and paid the government’s set wage.
Under capitalism, we must sell ourselves when we apply for a job. We get an education
in order to make ourselves saleable. The more saleable the better. Our aim is to earn
money by offering our services to others so that we can support ourselves. And in a free
society we have the choice of earning money by doing something we enjoy. That
requires ingenuity and creativity. Indeed, the fuel of invention is the desire to produce
something new of great value that will make us rich.
The ability of the author to combine God’s standards with human salesmanship is quite a
feat. This is the first book on salesmanship that I found enlightening and instructive
because Stevens elevates the whole concept of selling above the mundane view we have
of salesman as huckster. In other words, the salesman must have vision and the ability
to convey the true value of what he is selling.
He tells of the day he spent with Bill Gates at Microsoft, before Gates had become a
household name: “He waxed poetic about an ideal encapsulated in a vision. His goal of
seeing a computer on every desk in every home and office….There is a genuine analogy
here to religion, which sells us the ability to have meaning in our lives.” He also asked
Gates if he thought much about money. The answer was sharp: “Thinking a lot about
money is the best way to make sure you never earn a great deal of it. Far wiser to focus
on a passion, on something powerful you can do to change peoples’ lives. I have always
believed that the money will then follow.” Profitable advice for young entrepreneurs.
Even the concept of the guarantee is based on the guarantee that God will return our faith
with His eternal love and protection. That is a guarantee that the salesman must emulate
when selling his service or product. In other words, our guarantee must be real and not
conditional. Stevens writes further:
“As we seek to learn from The Master, we should think of why He is adored. It
has nothing to do with a product or service, it is because we believe God is great,
loving, accepting, generous, and moral. None of these attributes are flashy,
trendy, exotic, or expensive. Quite the opposite, they represent the staff of life,
simple goodness and inner beauty that is so rare in our world that when we see it
we are awed by it.”
Since selling is the central economic, social, and spiritual activity in a capitalist society, it
is worth noting that God has played a crucial role in the development of our modern
American civilization. It is that spiritual underpinning that permits human beings to
engage in economic activities that require trust, honesty, and integrity. Before the word
capitalism was invented, the free-market system was called the ”credit system,” whereby
entrepreneurs borrowed money to finance their businesses and paid the money back. It
could also have been called the “trust system,” because that’s what it was all about.
Indeed, the foundation of the free-market system is the concept of private property. That
is why we have a Patent Office, to ensure the private property rights of inventors.
The aim of the Fabian Socialists was the abolition of private property. Today, we have a
federal government that is gobbling up more and more property in the West, depriving
citizens of the productive use of land and resources that can build our prosperity.
The Democrats didn’t even try to sell us their national healthcare program. They simply
rammed it through a Democratic Congress despite overwhelming public opposition.
You cannot sell anything with lies. By lying you are admitting that what you are selling
is either of no value or is indeed harmful.
You cannot sell what will harm your customer, unless you lie about it. The Democrats
were not emulating The Master in selling national healthcare. Socialists are not
salesmen. They are imposers. That is why the message in Mark Stevens’ book is so
important. Salesmanship requires honesty. It requires truth. And a government that
lies to its citizens is a destructive force.
The policies and philosophy of the Democrat Party are in conflict with the principles of a
free-market economy, which requires honest salesmanship. The Democrats have been
trying to sell us socialism and slavery, which the American people are not buying.
Indeed, it is up to Americans to rediscover the importance of honest salesmanship in all
aspects of our lives, including government, based on the principles of The Master
salesman in all of history.
The Blumenfeld Archives
Origin of Saint Valentine’s Day – American Minute with Bill Federer
The origin of Saint Valentine’s Day goes back to early Christian history.
Today, at a time when governments are increasing their persecution of Christians, it is important to remember that the Church was born into a one-world anti-Christian government – the Roman Empire.
In the Book of Acts 1:8, Jesus told His disciples:
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, the word for “witness” in Greek is “martus,” which is the root word for “martyr.”
Eleven of the twelve apostles were martyred, with John boiled in a pot of oil but miraculously surviving and banished to the Island of Patmos.
During the first three centuries of Christianity, there were ten major persecutions, along with innumerable smaller ones.
Initially, Romans persecuted Jews and Christians together.
Christians met in catacombs, which were caves carved underground, risking their lives every time they met.
Government agents shut down churches, arrested pastors, sentenced believers to death, even throwing them to the lions in the Colosseum.
64-68 A.D.: Emperor Nero blamed fire in Rome on Christians and began first persecution;
69-79 A.D.: Emperors Vespasian and Titus persecuted Christians, in addition to destroying the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem;
89-96 A.D.: The persecution under Emperor Domitian included boiling the Apostle John in oil then banishing him to Patmos, in addition to hunting down and killing descendants of David;
108-117 A.D.: The persecution under Emperor Trajan;
117-138 A.D.: The persecution under Emperor Hadrian crushed the Jewish Bar Kokbah Revolt and renamed the Roman province of Judea to Syria Palaestina;
161-180 A.D.: The persecution under Emperor Marcus Aurelius killed Polycarp, the disciple of John;
192-211 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Septimius Severus;
235-238 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Maximinus the Thracian;
249-251 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Decius;
253-260 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Valerian;
268-270 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Claudius II Gothicus, during which Saint Valentine was reportedly martyred;
274-285 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Aurelian;
285-305 A.D.: Persecution under Emperor Diocletian, considered the worst of them all, decimating the entire Roman Theban Legion, which had become Christian, in addition to imprisoning Saint Nicholas;
305-313 A.D.: Finally, the persecution under Emperor Galerius.
Roman soldiers raided meetings and arrested believers, dragging them before corrupt judges, and also confiscated and destroyed Christian writings, scriptures and church records. As a result of this, records of the life of Saint Valentine are scant.
What little is known is from the works like Eusebius of Caesarea, c.339 A.D.. and the Martyrologium Hieronymianum – Martyrology of Jerome, compiled around 460-544 A.D.
Passio Marii et Marthae, published in the 5th or 6th century includes a story of the martyrdom of Saint Valentine of Rome.
St. Valentine is mentioned in the Legenda Sanctorum by Jacobus de Voragine in 1260 and in the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493.
Though several individuals may have had that name, it appears Saint Valentine was either a priest in Rome or a bishop in Terni, central Italy.
In the third century after Christ, the Roman Empire was being invaded by Goths.
Claudius II defeated the Goths at the Battle of Naissus, driving them across the Danube River, gaining him the additional name “Gothicus, meaning conqueror of the Goths.
At the same time, the Plague of Cyprian, probably smallpox, broke out killing at its height 5,000 people a day. So many died that the Roman army was depleted of soldiers.
Claudius needed more soldiers to fight the invading Goths. He believed that men fought better if they were not married, so he banned traditional marriage in the military.
Valentine risked the Emperor’s wrath by standing up for traditional marriage, secretly marrying soldiers to their brides.
Rome was also being torn from internal rivalries which continued since the assassination of the previous Emperor Gallienus.
Claudius quelled political tensions by requesting the Roman Senate deify Emperor Gallienus, so he would be worshiped along with the other Roman gods.
Government mandates were issued forcing citizens to worship them by placing a pinch of incense on a fire before their statues.
It was a simple act, and some Christians caved, but since it clearly “an act of worship,” others chose rather to die in the Colosseum before they would worship anything other than the one true God.
Those who refused worship of the Roman gods were considered “politically incorrect” or “unpatriotic” enemies of the state. They were cancelled and killed.
Emperor Deccan’s persecution intentionally targeted Christians by issuing government mandates and executive orders forcing them to deny their consciences or die.
Roman Governor Pliny the Younger wrote to Emperor Trajan, 111 A.D.:
“I ask them if they are Christians. If they admit it, I repeat the question … threatening capital punishment; if they persist, I sentence them to death.”
Emperor Trajan replied, 112 A.D.:
“If anyone denies that he is a Christian and actually proves it by worshiping our gods, he shall be pardoned as a result of his recantation.”
A pietist movement began of withdrawal from the corrupt society, with some believers living in caves as hermits or joining monasteries.
When Claudius II Gothicus demanded that Christians worship pagan idols and statues of deified Emperors, Saint Valentine refused.
The name Valentine is derived from the word “valor,” which means, strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter danger with firmness and personal bravery.
Venerable Bede’s Martyrology, compiled in the 8th century, described St. Valentine being arrested and interrogated by Claudius II Gothicus.
Claudius was impressed with Valentine and tried to convert him to paganism to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Claudius was offended.
He had Valentine arrested and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to die.
While awaiting execution, he preached to guards and other prisoners.
His jailer, Asterius, asked Saint Valentine to pray for his blind daughter. When she miraculously regained her sight, the jailer converted and was baptized, along with his entire family.
Right before his execution, Saint Valentine wrote a note to the jailer’s daughter, encouraging her in the faith, signing it, “from your Valentine.”
Saint Valentine was beaten with clubs and stones, and when that failed to kill him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate on FEBRUARY 14, 269 A.D.
I Timothy 4:8: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”
I John 4:18 “Perfect love casteth out fear.”
In 496 A.D., Pope Gelasius is credited with designating FEBRUARY 14th as “Saint Valentine’s Day.”
The 8th-century Gelasian Sacramentary recorded the celebration of the Feast of Saint Valentine on February 14.
How did St. Valentine’s Day get associated with love?
In the High Middle Ages, circa 1393, Geoffrey Chaucer, called the father of English literature, wrote a poem called Parliament of Foules – Assembly of Fowls, or Birds. “Fowl” is an old word for “bird.”
It it he described how many bird species birds, chose their mates in mid-February:
“For this was Saint Valentine’s day, when every bird of every kind that men can imagine comes to this place to choose his mate.”
He made another mention in the final chapter of The Cantebury Tales:
“The book of the Duchesse; the book of Seint Valentynes day of the Parlement of Briddes – Birds.”
The association of birds with fidelity in marital love came about because the majority of bird species are believed to be monogamous.
Many bird species are considered to mate for life, such as varieties of:
Swans,
Geese,
Ravens,
Cranes,
Blue Jays,
Owls,
Hawks,
Woodpeckers,
Ospreys,
Raptors,
Puffins,
Pigeons,
Dove,
Penquins, and
Bald Eagles.
After elaborate courtships, depending on the species, these birds remain together until one partner dies.
Birds that mate for life often take turns sitting on the eggs, females at night and males during the day. They have offspring that require more extensive care and instruction from parents.
These species mate earlier in the season which allows their young more time to develop before the fall and winter seasons of long migrations or harsh winter weather.
After Chaucer’s poems, more references appeared in literature associating Saint Valentine’s Day with courtly love, such as John Donne’s Marriage Song; and William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Midsummer Night’s Dream.
This eventually developed into the 18th-century English traditions of presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending St. Valentine’s Day greeting cards.
People often sign Valentine cards with X’s and O’s.
Where did this come from?
To answer this, we must go back to Rome. Remember Emperor Diocletian’s terrible persecution?
Believers prayed and Diocletian was struck with an intestinal disease so painful he abdicated the throne on May 1, 305 A.D.
The next Emperor, Gallerius, continued the persecution and was also struck with an intestinal disease, dying in 311 A.D.
Four Roman generals fought it out as to who would be the next emperor.
Two were defeated and it came down to Constantine and Maxentius and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD.
Reportedly, the day before the battle, Constantine saw the sign of Christ in the sky, put it on his shields and banners, and won the battle. Afterwards he stopped the persecution of Christians.
What was the sign of Christ?
It is said to be the first two letters of the Greek name for Christ.
Just like we often abbreviate states with the first two letters, Greek abbreviated names with the first two letters.
The Greek name for Christ is Xριστό.
The first letter which makes the “ks” sound is written as an “X” and is called “Chi.” The second letter, that makes the “er” sound is written as a “P” and is called “rho.” These two letters were called the “Chi-Rho.”
Over the centuries, it got shortened just to the Chi or X. “X” became a common abbreviation for the name Christ.
This is why Christ-mas is abbreviated as X-mas.
In Medieval times, the “X” was called the Christ’s Cross, or “Criss-Cross.”
In colonial America, young students were taught the alphabet, but before it was an “X.” Children would begin their recitation of the alphabet with the saying, “May Christ’s cross grant me speed – or success.”
It reminded students that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
One of the colonial school books had the rhyme: “Mortals ne’er shall know —
More than contained of old the Chris’-cross row.”
The Christ’s Cross was a form of a written oath. This came down to us as, “put your X here”; or “sign at the X,” or saying, “I swear, cross my heart.”
Similar to the ancient practice of swearing upon a Bible, saying “so help me God,” then kissing the Bible, people would sign a document with or next to the Christ’s Cross to swear before God they would keep the agreement, then kiss it to show sincerity.
This is the origin of signing a Valentine’s card with an “X” to express a pledge before God to be faithful, and an “O” to seal the pledge with a kiss of sincerity.
History is intertwined with Valentine’s references:
On February 14, 1688, William and Mary were placed by Parliament on the English throne.
On February 14, 1778, John Paul Jones, sailing the USS Ranger, was given a nine-gun salute by French Admiral Lamotte-Picquet. This was the first time the Stars and Stripes flag was formally recognized by a foreign nation.
On February 14, 1779, British Captain James Cook is killed in Hawaii.
On February 14, 1817, Frederick Douglass, the Republican advisor to President Lincoln, was born a slave on a southern Democrat plantation. He was separated from his mother as a child and only remembers that his mother would call him, “my little valentine,” leading him to assume he was born on Valentine’s Day.
On February 14, 1844, John C. Fremont was the first explorer to discover Lake Tahoe. He later became the first Republican candidate for President.
On February 14, 1859, Oregon became a state.
On February 14, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone.
On February 14, 1884, Theodore Roosevelt’s wife and mother died on Valentine’s Day. Depressed, he dropped out of New York politics, left his infant daughter with his sister, and went off to ranch in the Dakotas. He later came back to New York, took his daughter back, remarried and had five more children, then ran for President.
On February 14, 1912, Arizona became a state.
On February 14, 1929, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place during the Prohibition era. Al Capone’s Chicago mob murdered seven members of Bugs Moran’s Irish gang.
On February 14, 1949, the first Jewish Knesset meeting was held, with Israel’s first President Chaim Weizmann.
Since the Roman persecutions, Christianity has become the most persecuted faith in the world, with over 300 being martyred each day, or one every five minutes, mostly in communist and fundamentalist Islamic countries.
The Center for Studies on New Religions reported that in 2016, 90,000 Christians killed, 30 percent by sharia Islamic terrorists. Several organizations keep track of this, such as Voice of the Martyrs, and SavethePersecutedChristians.
Saint Valentine’s love for Christ and his loving example of heroic valor still inspires believers to follow the scriptures:
Matthew 5:44: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.”
John 13:35: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
I John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
I John 4:19 “We love him, because he first loved us.”
John 15:13 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
–
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate with acknowledgement.
American Minute with Bill Federer South of the Border: Mexico’s Revolutions & How they pursued former Presidents & their supporters
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Reposted with permission from American Minute.
The Weekly Sam: America Started with Educational Freedom By Samuel L. Blumenfeld
One of the reasons why the United States of America got off to such a great start is
because we had total educational freedom. When the Constitution was written, there was
already by then a great variety of teaching institutions. The Dames Schools were colonial
preschools in which children were taught the three R’s in preparation for going on to an
academy. The academy was a private school run by an educational entrepreneur. It
prepared students for higher learning or a trade or profession. They were considered the
most appropriate educational institution for a free people. Their responsibility was to the
parents who put their children in the academy.
Home tutoring was also very common in those days. There was no such thing as
“compulsory school attendance.” Parents were free to provide their children with any
fonn of education which met their needs. Children were taught to read and write in the
Dames Schools, which were keenly aware that Biblical literacy was an absolute necessity
in a society based on the teachings of the Bible.
In New England, laws had been passed requiring parents to educate their children. This
spurred the creation of Common Schools throughout the region. Towns hired teachers to
run such schools. Their main function was to prepare the students for future studies in
the colleges. They were owned and operated by the local folks who usually paid the
schoolmasters with commodities rather than money.
The beauty of this high degree of freedom was that education was practical, its
foundation based on reality. Whatever was taught was intended to improve the
knowledge, skills, and aptitUdes of the students. The community’s basic purpose in
education was to pass on to the future generation the knowledge, wisdom, religion and
morals of the previous generation. There was no such thing as religious neutrality. The
United States was a Christian nation and all agreed that children should be inculcated in
the tenets of Christianity. And anyone who went into the education profession knew its
spiritual purposes.
But then the question arises: why did Americans give up educational freedom so early in
their history when its benefits were so obvious? Believe it or not, it had nothing to do
with economics or poor teaching. Literacy was very high and education was available to
everyone. There were even excellent charity schools that provided education for the
children of the poor. There was no need for the government to get involved in education.
.
But in Boston, the government did get involved in establishing the Boston Latin School,
an elite school to prepare students for Harvard. It was funded by the city even though the
parents of the students could easily have paid its costs. But the liberals in Boston were
already looking to government to establish an elite institution separated from the church.
What happened to create this state of mind? It was the rise of the Unitarian heresy at
Harvard among the descendants of the Puritans. Intellectual pride became the spearhead
of religious Liberalism.
T
The Unitarians no longer believed in the Trinity or in the divinity of Christ. If Christ was
divine it was in the sense that we are all divine. But while Christ was considered a great
teacher, he was not considered to be the source of salvation. The Unitarians also rejected
Calvin’s view of man as being innately depraved who needed to be saved by Jesus Christ.
The Unitarians believed that man was basically good, and that all he needed was a good
secular education to achieve moral perfectibility.
And so the Boston Unitarians launched a strong campaign to create government primary
schools in which Calvinist teachings would be eliminated. They were successful because
they learned how to influence the press, control the legislature, and get what they wanted.
As the public school movement grew, the orthodox were in a dilenuna as to whether or
not to support it. In 1849, the orthodox General Association of Massachusetts decided in
favor of support with this very important stipulation. They wrote:
If after a full and faithful experiment, it should at last be seen that fidelity to the
religious interests of our children forbids a further patronage of the system, we
can unite with the Evangelical Christians in the establishment of private schools,
in which more full doctrinal religious instruction may be possible.
There is no question that the “full and faithful experiment” has been a colossal failure,
and that millions of Christian children have been spiritually harmed. While many parents
have taken their children out of the public schools, and hundreds if not thousands of
church schools have been founded, the vast majority of Christian parents still put their
children in these anti-Christian public schools. In other words, we have still to learn the
lessons of history.
The Blumenfeld Archives http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
American Groomer: An Interview with Elena Barbera
Camp Constitution’s Hal Shurtleff had the opportunity to interview Elena Barbera, producer of the powerful documentary American Groomer. In this short call to action documentary, Elena goes into the history of groomers, and who funds them from Alfred Kinsey to the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) to today’s groomers who have access to promote their perversion in many of our nation’s schools. From her website:
American Groomer is a documentary revealing the disturbing truth about sexualization of children in American schools.
The average citizen is totally unaware of the societal, physical, emotional, and behavioral dangers of this appalling, astonishing fetish.
Kids are being introduced to kink, taught incomplete science behind STDs, and are being encouraged to make dangerous choices.
And in the majority of states, it’s perfectly legal to show your kids the filthiest porn available in school. Yes, really.
Please join our mailing list below for behind-the-scenes updates on filming, release dates, and more.
Produced by Elena Barbera (of SonnyFaz and Elena The Based Mother on YouTube and Rumble).
https://americangroomerfilm.com
(A link to an audio version of the interview: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2025-01-31T15_26_38-08_00
We encourage readers to host showings of this documentary.
Devout Catholic teacher ordered to purge workspace of crucifix or get fired
First Liberty Institute has dispatched a letter to a Connecticut school district suggesting that it reconsider its demands that a devout Catholic teacher purge her workspace of a crucifix – or get fired.
“Requiring a teacher to purge their workspace of anything religious is blatant discrimination that violates the First Amendment,” explained Keisha Russell, a senior counsel at the legal organization.
“The Supreme Court said in the recent Kennedy decision that teachers have the right to engage in personal religious expression under the Free Exercise Clause, including when students are present.”
The institute said it sent a letter to officials at the New Britain School District on behalf of Marisol Orroyo-Castro, who has been a teacher for three decades.
The letter calls on the district to reinstate her, after she was placed on administrative leave for refusing to “remove a small crucifix from her workspace.”
The legal team explained:
Marisol has taught in the Connecticut public schools for 32 years. For the last 10 years, she has placed a crucifix by her desk along with other personal items such as student artwork and a church calendar. As a devout Catholic, the crucifix reminds her to pray and helps her remain calm throughout the day as she faithfully teaches her students.
On Friday, December 6, 2024, she was brought into a meeting with the vice principal and abruptly told that unless she removed the crucifix by her desk by Monday morning she would be disciplined for insubordination. She was later told she could put the crucifix in a drawer or under her desk, so students wouldn’t see it.
After she did so, Marisol started to sob, feeling as though she “hid it under a bushel,” rather than let her light shine. After many tears and prayer, she returned the crucifix to its original location. She was then suspended without pay for two days during the holiday season as the school waited for her to comply and hang the crucifix under her desk in a place the school administration called her “private space.” Now, she is on administrative leave during the grievance process. The school district said it is considering whether to terminate Marisol.
The lawyers noted that other teachers are allowed to display photographs of family and friends, images of Wonder Woman and Baby Yoda, a miniature of the Mona Lisa, promotions for the New England Patriots football team, inspirational quotes and much more, including a mug referencing a Bible verse.
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But the district won’t tolerate a crucifix.
In the letter, the attorneys explain, “Under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and under the Connecticut Constitution, the District may not abridge its employees’ free speech rights, nor their rights to freely exercise their religion.”
Then the letter cited the Kennedy precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court.
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“Fewer than three years ago, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court held that a public school football coach could not be fired for engaging in personal prayer, even when he did so visibly at the 50-yard line of the stadium after home games.”
First Liberty Institute also represented Kennedy in that case.
Fox reported First Liberty Institute is working with WilmerHale law firm on the case.
Castro had been teaching at DeLoreto Elementary & Middle School.
First Liberty Institute said while on leave, Castro has been “pressured to resign or retire early and sign an agreement not to sue the district.”
The threats also have included her termination.
Tony Gasper, the superintendent, claimed, “We will not allow any teacher to use their position of authority to impose their personal religious beliefs or infringe on the civil rights of students. Our commitment is to ensure a learning environment where all students feel respected.”
Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.
(Reposted with permission from WND.)
Time to Re-Evaluate the Legacy of Martin Luther King by Vincent Ellison
Originally published at American Thinker
After finding evidence that the “man of God” and “moral conscience of our nation,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., participated in the rape of a parishioner, engaged in numerous sex orgies, received cash payments from known communists, and admitted that he was a Marxist, King biographer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Garrow wrote of King, “There is no question that a profoundly painful reckoning and reconsideration inescapably awaits.”
Black Democrats and White liberals rail about the gains derived from the Civil Rights Movement. I ask, “What gains?” If murder, poverty, and mass incarceration are gains, you may have a point. In an attempt to make him untouchable, liberals have protected King’s counterfeit legacy by sealing his FBI files until 2027. Nevertheless, his reckoning is here.
But that reckoning shouldn’t occur exclusively because of King’s immoral behavior. It shouldn’t happen because the “Good Reverend’s” best friend, Ralph Abernathy, in his book And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, described King beating a woman and sleeping with two others at the Lorrain Motel the night before his death. Or because Arthur Schlesinger recorded Jackie Kennedy saying he was “terrible, phony, and tricky.” Or that Black Major League Baseball player Don Newcombe reported to the FBI that King was a “drunk” and had an illegitimate child by a woman married to a sterile Los Angeles dentist. Or because King allowed the dirty world of politics to turn the Black church into a puppet of the atheist and racist Democrat party.
No. This reckoning should happen because Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement have failed Black people. They managed only to elect many Black Americans into office, with most of them belonging to the same evil Democrat party that had necessitated the Civil Rights Movement by enslaving, raping, castrating, and oppressing Black Americans for over one hundred and fifty years.
After fifty years of following King’s failed ideology, consider these results. On June 4, 2020, the Washington Post reported “no decrease in Black and White citizens’ wealth gap since 1968.” The Brookings Institution reported that in 1965, only 24% of Black children were born out of wedlock. In 2020, it was 69.4 (approximately a 300% increase). Between 2019 and 2020, Blacks made up 11% of the population but 50% of all murders. In May 2019, Penn State and UCLA reported that school segregation is getting worse.
This is King’s legacy. Why are we celebrating it?
In explaining how to recognize a false prophet, Jesus said, “A tree is known by the fruit it bears.” He said you cannot get bad fruit from a good tree. The fruits of the Black community, almost unanimously, are rotten to the core.
What good has come from Martin Luther King’s movement for Black America? The American Black community is at the bottom of nearly every socio-economic statistic. The Black family is weaker. The Black church is more apostate. The Black economy is nonexistent. Black government is corrupt. Black education is terrible. Are we celebrating failure, or was this their intention?
To have been a Christian minister, it is illuminating that King’s ideology is anathema to Christianity, manliness, and American freedom. Consider this: after attempting to integrate an all-White hotel in 1965, when asked what he wanted, King reported replied, “My dignity.” I hate this story. God gave all of us our dignity, but King and his minions taught America that White people held the dignity of Black America in their hands, and we had to beg them to release it.
His low opinion of Black people was on full display when he said Black people could not pull themselves up by their bootstraps because “they did not have boots.” He told us non-violence is a Christian virtue. That is not true. There is no virtue in strong Christian men allowing their wives and children to be beaten, raped, and murdered as King demanded. Non-aggression is a Christian virtue, not non-violence.
Forced integration or forcing others to allow you to be where you are not wanted or not invited is not a Christian or manly virtue. It is offensive to force your presence upon another, and Jesus taught that we should never offend unless it is for his sake and never our own. To do otherwise defines you as a stalker. A stalker can never be loved — only pitied, as most Black Americans are today.
In his epic “I Have A Dream” speech, reportedly written by his White communist handler, Stanley Levinson, King planted a sense of perpetual slavery in the minds of every Black person when he said, “One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, the Negro is still not free.” That is not true. I was born free. God gave me my freedom.
In that speech, he placed in the Black mind the blasphemous idea that government is above God when he said we have come here to cash a check from America guaranteeing our unalienable rights. That isn’t true. Our unalienable rights are given to us by God. According to John Locke, these rights are irreversible, unsellable, and nontransferable.
Cementing in the minds of Black Americans and America the belief in Black inferiority, he delivered his most quoted line: “I have a dream that one day my four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin.” You wish not to be judged only by something that shames you. One should never be ashamed of something that God gave him. Furthermore, Christianity teaches that we cannot and should not try to control the actions of others. The stupid, ignorant racist should not be concerned about me. I am never concerned about his judgment or bigotry. We can only control ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with the color of my Black skin. You are welcome to judge me by it. Underestimate me at your peril.
He ended this epic speech by doubling down on the fact that Blacks were not free, and we needed the permission of White people to be free by saying “knowing that we will be free one day” and on a certain day we can say, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we’re free at last.”
Let me reiterate: I was born free. No man can set me free. I just am.
His speech set in motion decades of Black victimization and White guilt. It is recited from every classroom in America, indoctrinating future generations to believe the lie of Black inferiority and the goodness of government dependency. Instead of being recited, it should be re-evaluated, condemned, and placed in the trash bin of history beside the Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson rulings.
These King statements that have long been a part of America and are canon in Black American thought must be pulled up, root and stem. White Americans are not responsible for and cannot solve the problems of Black people. No other racial group in America carries this badge of inferiority, depending for all their future success on the actions of another racial group. Most comprehend the insanity of this ideology, and the present condition of Black society testifies to its epic failure. Therefore, King’s reckoning is at hand, and as with the old Confederacy, it’s time for a reconsideration.
Regarding King, Jim Tott wrote, “Toward the end of his life, a major poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans held an unfavorable opinion of the civil rights icon.” On March 4, 2015, CBS News ran a story titled “Have the goals of the civil rights movement been achieved” Fifty-four percent of all Americans and 72% of Black Americans say no.
With all the speeches, marches, and pieces of legislation, with no success, it is time to understand that King was wrong. Black Americans cannot garner love and respect through legislative coercion. History has proven that it is a waste of time even to seek it. We should spend our time trying to control and improve ourselves, praying for and protecting ourselves from people who mean us harm, while cherishing the people we love.
There is evidence that King’s new society that teaches pity, not esteem, begging instead of earning, and stalking instead of standing has bred an insidious self-hate among Black people. Sadly, wherever Black people live in close proximity with one another, they hurt, disrespect, and kill each other on an industrial level while aborting their children at three times the level of white women.
When stalking, begging, and pity didn’t work, King resorted to violence. He contracted out his violence to a third party. He used the gun of the federal government to force the racist Democrats to allow Black Americans into their presence. Intentionally or unintentionally, King placed Black America into the sad position where they are now not respected, but pitied; where they are not wanted, but tolerated; where they do not earn, but are “given” — thus leaving too many of these Black people filled with hate, pride, envy, and grievance, devoid of gratitude, never satisfied, always complaining, and never saying “thank you” or thanking God.
This line of thinking has produced a generation of Black people where there exist mostly victims and their victimhood-supporters and allies: Black Lives Matter, the Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP — all marvelous beggars, cowards, and thieves.
Taylor Branch, in his book Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, called Martin Luther King, Jr. “a pawn of history.” He is that and much worse. He is a weapon the left wields in the Democrat party, designed to keep America in condemnation and Black people in their place.
King’s aforementioned amoral actions are germane only in the sense that they match the amoral outcomes of the Civil Rights Movement. Blacks must take their place as free men and women, complete with all of its dangers and glories. Black men of honor must reject all condescending overtures of affirmative action, the pity of Critical Race Theory, and the weakness of “anti-racist theory” from our former oppressors. We must compete, earn, and defend as all free men do.
Because of King’s abusive behavior toward women, David Garrow concluded his piece on King by saying these actions “pose[] so fundamentally a challenge to his historical stature as to require the most complete and extensive historical review possible.” This may be true. But the wretched condition of Black America is the primary black mark on King’s legacy and the ultimate reason for his re-evaluation.
Until Black Americans reject King’s ideology and accept that we should be esteemed by instead of ashamed of the color of our skin; that we, not White America, hold our dignity in our hands; that our rights come from God, not government; that we are and always have been free, and that we should never stalk, beg, and compare ourselves to White America or anyone ever again other than our former selves, Black America will remain at the bottom of every socio-economic statistic in the Western world.
Dangerous freedom over safe slavery; justice over equality; strength and honor over pity, envy, and stalking. This is the true face of America and what God intends for all people.
Vince Ellison is the author of several books including Crime Inc and the producer of the documentary “Will You Go to Hell For Me. Please visit his website https://vinceeellison.com/
The Weekly Sam: WHY NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICA ABANDONED CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS IN FAVOR OF PUBLIC EDUCATION
Sam Blumenfeld wrote this 18-page double spaced essay back in the 1970s:
Sam ended the essay with this:
“The choice for Christians today is quite clear. They cannot continue to put
their children in Satanic schools if they wish to preserve the values,
the unalienable rights derived from God, on which this nation’s
origin is based and on which its future survival depends. America
abandoned its early Christian schools for the wrong reasons. It
must now get back to them for the right reasons. The purpose of
life is still and will always be the glorification of God, and the
function of education, in the words of R. J. Rushdoony, is the
“preparation of man to glorify God, to enjoy Him, and to serve Him
in and through a chosen calling.” This is the knowledge we should
be imparting to our children, at home or in school, and that is the
only way we shall be able to preserve the priceless heritage of
freedom our founding fathers bequeathed us.”
The Blumenfeld Archives
“So Help Me God”: Purpose of an Oath, and Nietzsche’s shocking admission – American Minute with Bill Federer
On February 28, 2019, Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen (TN) was swearing in witnesses before a House Judiciary Subcommittee.
Then Congressman Mike Johnson (LA) made a point of parliamentary inquiry: “I think we left out ‘so help me God.’”
Cohen replied: “We did.”
Johnson asked “Can we have the witnesses do it again for the record?”
Cohen responded: “No,” then added: “If they want to do it, but some of them don’t want to do it, and I don’t think it’s necessary, and I don’t like to assert my will over other people.”
Johnson responded:
“Well it goes back to our founding history, it’s been part of our tradition for more than two centuries and I don’t know that we should abandon it now.”
Democrat Rep. Jerrold Nadler (NY) interrupted:
“If any witness objects he should not be asked to … and we should let it go with that.”
That was it. Gone. Over two hundred years of precedent of witnesses ending their oath with the phrase “so help me God” abruptly discarded.
Why did the founders include “So Help Me God” in the oath?
Human nature!
Greek philosopher Plato explained that human nature was such, that if a person could escape accountability, they would act unjustly, with selfish immorality.
Plato wrote in The Republic, 380 BC:
“According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock.
Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels … looking in saw a dead body of stature … having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended …”
Plato continued:
“Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king;
into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present …
… He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result–when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared.
… Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court;
whereas soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom.”
Plato added:
“No man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice.
No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.
Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point.
… And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust.
For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right …”
Plato concluded that it would be illogical for a person with Gyges’ ring not to yield to the temptation:
“If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot.”
Only the belief in God–an eternal, invisible, just God–and that one is personally accountable to Him in the next life, could a person resist the temptation of the ring of Gyges.
William Linn, unanimously elected the first U.S. House Chaplain, stated May 1, 1789:
“Let my neighbor once persuade himself that there is no God, and he will soon pick my pocket, and break not only my leg but my neck.
If there be no God, there is no law, no future account; government then is the ordinance of man only, and we cannot be subject for conscience sake.”
The tradition in America has been for oaths to end with “So Help Me God.”
The military’s oath of enlistment ended with “So Help Me God.”
The commissioned officers’ oath ended with “So Help Me God.”
President’s oath of office ended with “So Help Me God.”
Congressmen and Senators’ oath ended with “So Help Me God.”
Witnesses in Court swore to tell the truth, “So Help Me God.”
Even an oath proposed by Lincoln for individuals wanting to be U.S. citizens ended with “So Help Me God.”
Lincoln announced his plan, December 8, 1863, to let back into the Union those who had been in the Confederacy:
“Whereas it is now desired by some persons heretofore engaged in said rebellion to resume their allegiance to the United States …
… Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States … make known to all persons who have … participated in the existing rebellion …
that a full pardon is hereby granted … with restoration of all rights of property … upon the condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath … to wit:
“I, ______, do solemnly swear, in the presence of ALMIGHTY GOD, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder,
and that I will in like manner abide by and faithfully support all acts of Congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves …
and that I will in like manner abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves …
so help me God.”
A situation was faced by Justice Samuel Chase, who was Chief Justice of Maryland’s Supreme Court in 1791, and then appointed by George Washington to be a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, 1796-1811.
In 1799, a dispute arose over whether an Irish immigrant named Thomas M’Creery had in fact become a naturalized U.S. citizen and thereby able to leave an estate to a relative in Ireland.
The court decided in M’Creery’s favor based on a certificate executed before Justice Samuel Chase, which stated:
“I, Samuel Chase, Chief Judge of the State of Maryland, do hereby certify all whom it may concern,
that … personally appeared before me Thomas M’Creery, and did repeat and subscribe a declaration of his belief in the Christian Religion, and take the oath required … entitled, An Act for Naturalization.”
The purpose of an oath is to call a Higher Power to hold you accountable to perform what you promised.
It is a fearful understanding that you are inviting divine judgement upon yourself if you lie or break your promise.
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary gave the definition:
“OATH: A solemn affirmation or declaration, made with an appeal to God for the truth of what is affirmed.
The appeal to God in an oath implies that the person imprecates (invokes) His vengeance and renounces His favor if the declaration is false,
or if the declaration is a promise, the person invokes the vengeance of God if he should fail to fulfill it.”
An example of an oath is in Genesis 31:49-53, taken between Jacob and his father-in-law, Laban:
“… for he said, The LORD watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another. If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee …
Behold this heap … this pillar, which I have cast betwixt me and thee …
I will not pass over this heap to thee, and that thou shalt not pass over this heap and this pillar unto me, for harm. The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge betwixt us. “
An unorthodox view of taking an oath was mentioned by Bill Clinton at the National Prayer Breakfast, February 4, 1993:
“Just two weeks and a day ago, I took the oath of office as President.
You know the last four words, for those who choose to say it in this way, are ‘so help me God’ … Deep down inside I wanted to say it the way I was thinking it, which was, ‘So, – help me, God.'”
Judicial courts thought oaths would lose their effectiveness if the public at large lost the fear of the God, as He gave the commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”
New York Supreme Court Chief Justice Chancellor Kent noted in People v. Ruggles, 1811, that irreverence weakened the effectiveness of oaths:
“Christianity was parcel of the law, and to cast contumelious (insulting) reproaches upon it, tended to weaken the foundation of moral obligation, and the efficacy (effectiveness) of oaths.”
George Washington warned of this in his Farewell Address, 1796:
“Let it simply be asked where is the security for prosperity, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in the Courts of Justice?”
In August of 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville observed a court case:
“While I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at the assizes of the county of Chester (state of New York), declared that he did not believe in the existence of God or in the immortality of the soul.
The judge refused to admit his evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand all confidence of the court in what he was about to say. The newspapers related the fact without any further comment …”
DeTocqueville continued:
“The New York Spectator of August 23d, 1831, relates the fact in the following terms:
‘The court of common pleas of Chester county (New York), a few days since rejected a witness who declared his disbelief in the existence of God.
… The presiding judge remarked, that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who did not believe in the existence of God;
that this belief constituted the sanction (validity) of all testimony in a court of justice:
and that he knew of no case in a Christian country, where a witness had been permitted to testify without such belief.'”
President Dwight Eisenhower addressed the American Legion Back-to-God Program, February 20, 1955:
“Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first — the most basic — expression of Americanism.”
Oaths to hold office had similar acknowledgments.
The Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1776, signed by Ben Franklin, stated in chapter 2, section 10:
“Each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz:
‘I do believe in one God, the Creator and Governor of the Universe, the Rewarder of the good and Punisher of the wicked, and I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration.'”
The Constitution of South Carolina, 1778, article 12, stated:
“Every … person, who acknowledges the being of a God, and believes in the future state of rewards and punishments … (is eligible to vote).”
The Constitution of South Carolina, 1790, article 38, stated:
“That all persons and religious societies, who acknowledge that there is one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, and that God is publicly to be worshiped, shall be freely tolerated.”
The Constitution of Mississippi, 1817, stated:
“No person who denies the being of God or a future state of rewards and punishments shall hold any office in the civil department of the State.”
The Constitution of Maryland, 1851, required office holders make:
“A declaration of belief in the Christian religion; and if the party shall profess to be a Jew the declaration shall be of his belief in a future state of rewards and punishments.”
In 1864, the Constitution of Maryland, required office holders to make:
“A declaration of belief in the Christian religion, or of the existence of God, and in a future state of rewards and punishments.”
The Constitution of Tennessee, 1870, article IX, Section 2, stated:
“No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this State.”
Justice James Iredell, nominated by George Washington to the Supreme Court, defined an oath as a:
“solemn appeal to the Supreme Being for the truth of what is said by a person who believes in the existence of a Supreme Being and in a future state of rewards and punishments.”
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court stated in Commonwealth v. Wolf (3 Serg. & R. 48, 50, 1817:
“Laws cannot be administered in any civilized government unless the people are taught to revere the sanctity of an oath, and look to a future state of rewards and punishments for the deeds of this life.”
It was understood that persons in positions of power would have opportunities to do corrupt deep-state backroom deals for their own benefit.
But what if that person believed that:
- God was watching;
- that He wanted them to be just and honest; and
- that He would hold them accountable in the future.
These beliefs would motivate a person to hesitate doing wrong, thinking “even if I get away with this my whole life, I will still be accountable to God in the next.”
This is what is called “having a conscience.”
But if that person did not believe in God and in a future state of rewards and punishments, when presented with the same temptation — with no ultimate accountability — they would yield to it.
In fact, if there is no God and this life is all there is, a person, according to Plato, would be an idiot not to.
John Adams wrote again to Judge F.A. Van de Kemp, December 27, 1816:
“Let it once be revealed or demonstrated that there is no future state, and my advice to every man, woman, and child, would be, as our existence would be in our own power, to take opium.
For, I am certain there is nothing in this world worth living for but hope, and every hope will fail us, if the last hope, that of a future state, is extinguished.”
Democrat Presidential Candidate William Jennings Bryan reasoned, September 17, 1913:
“There is a powerful restraining influence in the belief that an all-seeing eye scrutinizes every thought and word and act of the individual …
A religion which teaches PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD gives strength to morality”
President Reagan stated in 1984:
“Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience.”
Sir William Blackstone, one of the most quoted authors by America’s founders, wrote in Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765-1770:
“The belief of a future state of rewards and punishments, the entertaining just ideas of the main attributes of the Supreme Being,
and a firm persuasion that He superintends and will finally compensate every action in human life (all which are revealed in the doctrines of our Savior, Christ),
these are the grand foundations of all judicial oaths, which call God to witness the truth of those facts which perhaps may be only known to Him and the party attesting.”
Signer of the Declaration John Witherspoon wrote:
“An oath … implies a belief in God … and indeed is an act of worship …
In vows, there is no party but God and the person himself who makes the vow.”
The Gospel is:
God is just, and therefore must judge every sin;
but
God is love, and He, Himself, provided the Lamb to take the judgment for our sins.
Nevertheless, the Apostle Paul admonished in his letter to the Philippines, 2:12:
“Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.” (NLT)
This was the view of Secretary of State Daniel Webster, who, when asked what was the greatest thought that ever passed through his mind, replied:
“My accountability to God.”
Benjamin Franklin wrote to Yale President Ezra Stiles, March 9, 1790:
“The soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its conduct in this.”
Franklin also wrote:
“That there is one God, Father of the Universe … That He loves such of His creatures as love and do good to others:
and will reward them either in this world or hereafter,
That men’s minds do not die with their bodies, but are made more happy or miserable after this life according to their actions.”
John Adams wrote to Judge F.A. Van der Kemp, January 13, 1815:
“My religion is founded on the love of God and my neighbor; in the hope of pardon for my offenses; upon contrition …
In the duty of doing no wrong, but all the good I can, to the creation, of which I am but an infinitesimal part.
I believe, too, in a future state of rewards and punishments.”
Some tried to extinguish “a future state.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) is remembered for his line “God is dead.”
He exposed how hypocritical it was for atheists to claim to be “moral” (“Twilight of the Idols,” The Portable Nietzsche, ed., trans. Walter Kaufman, NY: Penguin Books, 1976, p. 515-6):
“When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet.
This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads.
Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one’s hands.
Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it.
Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God has truth — it stands or falls with faith in God.”
Nietzsche criticized English atheist Mary Ann Evans, whose pen name was “George Elliot,” by pointing out that it was hypocritical for an atheist to claim to be good:
“G. Elliot: They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality.
This is an English inconsistency: we do not wish to hold it against little moralistic females à la Eliot.
In England one must rehabilitate oneself after ever little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is. That is the penance they pay there …
When the English actually believe that they know ‘intuitively’ what is good and evil, when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of morality, we merely witness the effects of the dominion of the Christian value judgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion:
such that the origin of English morality has been forgotten, such that the very conditional character of its right to existence is no longer felt. For the English, morality is not yet a problem.”
Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, in his book The Brothers Karamazov, 1880, had the character Ivan Karamazov contend that if there is no God, “everything is permitted.”
Kenneth Lantz described in The Dostoevsky Encyclopedia, 2004 (Greenwood Publishing) how Dostoevsky criticized Europe:
“In Dostoevsky’s incomplete article ‘Socialism and Christianity,’ he claimed civilization had become degraded, and it was moving towards liberalism and losing its faith in God.
He asserted that the traditional concept of Christianity should be recovered.
He thought that contemporary Western Europe had ‘rejected the single formula for their salvation that came from God and was proclaimed through revelation,’ and replaced it with practical conclusions such as, ‘every man for himself and God for all,’ or ‘scientific’ slogans like ‘survival of the fittest.’
Dostoevsky considered this crisis to be the consequence of the collision between communal and individual interests, brought about by a decline in religious and moral principles.”
Rufus King, a signer of the U.S. Constitution, wrote in “Reports of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of 1821, Assembled for the Purpose of Amending The Constitution of the State of New York,” October 30, 1821:
“In our laws … by the oath which they prescribe, we appeal to the Supreme Being so to deal with us hereafter as we observe the obligation of our oaths.
The Pagan world were and are without the mighty influence of this principle which is proclaimed in the Christian system – their morals were destitute of its powerful sanction while their oaths neither awakened the hopes nor fears which a belief in Christianity inspires.”
John Adams warned October 11, 1798, in his address to the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division of Massachusetts’ Militia:
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.
Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net …
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Noah Webster wrote in A Collection of Papers on Political, Literary and Moral Subjects (New York, 1843):
“The virtue which is necessary to … render a government stable, is Christian virtue, which consists in the uniform practice of moral and religious duties, in conformity with the laws of both of God and man.”
Harvard Professor Clay Christensen, the Robert & Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, observed February 8, 2011:
“If you take away religion, you cannot hire enough police.”
John Adams wrote in a Proclamation of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer, March 6, 1799:
“No truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration … than … acknowledgment of … a Supreme Being and of the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributor of rewards and punishments.”
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Image Credits: Public Domain; Description: George Washington in 1797; Date: January 1, 1797; Author: Gilbert Stuart (1755–1828); https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Washington_1797_cropped.jpg
Artwork details: Title: The Inauguration of Washington as First President of the United States, April 30th 1789 – At the Old City Hall, New York – The oath of office was administered by Chancellor Livingston of the States of New York – Mr. Otis the Secretary of the Senate holding up the Bible on a crimson cushion.; Publisher: Currier & Ives (American, active New York, 1857–1907); Sitter: George Washington (American, 1732–1799); Date: 1876; Medium: Hand-colored lithograph; Dimensions: Image: 8 7/8 × 12 1/2 in. (22.6 × 31.7 cm); Sheet: 13 1/2 × 17 11/16 in. (34.3 × 44.9 cm); Classification: Prints; Credit Line: Bequest of Adele S. Colgate, 1962; Object Number: 63.550.455