WND EXCLUSIVE WATCH: The stunning truth about China and the Panama Canal
As Trump boldly takes back control of vital U.S.-built waterway, media decry president’s ‘expansionist agenda,’ ‘land grab’ obsession and ‘new U.S. imperialism’
Democrats in Congress hate it.
“It’s bananas. It’s insane,” U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D.-Conn., told CNN. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D.-Fla., agrees: “It is utterly preposterous to suggest that we are going to send our military into Panama to, quote, ‘take back the Panama Canal.'” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., speaks for virtually all his congressional peers when he insists, “House Democrats believe that we are not sent to Washington to invade Greenland, rename the Gulf of Mexico or seize the Panama Canal by force!”
But as President Donald Trump stated explicitly during his March 4 speech to Congress, the nation and the world: “My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal – and we’ve already started doing it. Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple of other canals.”
The Panama Canal, Trump pointed out, “was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure. 38,000 workers died building the Panama Canal. They died of malaria, they died of snakebites and mosquitoes. Not a nice place to work. They paid them very highly to go there, knowing there was a 25% chance that they would die – the most expensive project also that was ever built in our country’s history.”
Trump’s inaugural address: ‘China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.’
Concluded the 47th president: “It was given away by the Carter administration for $1. But that agreement has been violated very severely. We didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
‘Going to a battlefield’
The astonishingly gruesome process of constructing the Panama Canal – commenced by America in 1904 and completed a decade later – was undertaken to fulfill the centuries-old dream of connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, thereby saving ships from 21-23 extra days at sea by being able to cross through what would become a 51-mile-long waterway.
However, “the Panamanian isthmus proved to be one of the most difficult – and deadly – spots in the world in which to construct a channel,” explains History.com:
Death could strike in the form of an 18-ton boulder or miniscule, malaria-carrying mosquitoes that bred by the millions in festering swamps and puddles. … “The working condition in those days were so horrible it would stagger your imagination,” recalled laborer Alfred Dottin. “Death was our constant companion. I shall never forget the train loads of dead men being carted away daily, as if they were just so much lumber.”
The most dangerous work took place as laborers carved a ditch 45 feet deep and at least 300 feet wide through an eight-mile mountainous stretch known as the Culebra Cut.”
Nicknamed “Hell’s Gorge,” the Culebra Cut was a cauldron of noise with roaring locomotives and belching steam shovels where risks of death ranged from drowning to electrocution. Workers blasted away at the mountains with upwards of 60 million pounds of dynamite, which could ignite prematurely in the tropical Panamanian climate. …
Flooding regularly submerged equipment, and the unstable ground could give way at any instant. “The work of months or even years might be blotted out by an avalanche of earth,” lamented a senior U.S. administrator.
Particularly for workers partially deafened as a side effect of drinking quinine to ward off malaria, the inability to hear made deadly railroad accidents a regular occurrence. In an oral history, George Hodges remembered a fellow worker who fell trying to hop on a train and the wheel of another train “cut his body right in two…as if he had been chopped with a machete.”
As one laborer, Antonio Sanchez, explained, working in “the cut” was just like “going to a battlefield.”
Fast-forward six decades. In 1976, Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, campaigning against Gerald Ford, publicly promised – as did Ford – that he would not support transferring the canal from U.S. ownership to Panama, an idea that was then popular with the elites, but not the American people. Yet when he won the presidency, Carter changed his mind and, in 1977, signed the Carter-Torrijos Treaties, transferring total control of the canal to Panama, to take effect on Dec. 31, 1999.
Interestingly, during the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan expressed his firm opposition to turning the canal over to Panama … and then defeated Carter in a historic landslide, with a staggering 489 Electoral College votes to Carter’s 49.
“When it comes to the [Panama] Canal,” Reagan said, “we built it, we paid for it, it’s ours, and … we are going to keep it!”
China’s plans for world domination
Today, the big issue cited by Trump and other administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is what has long amounted to the de facto control of the Panama Canal by the nation widely regarded as America’s most dangerous geopolitical adversary.
How can that be, many wonder? What happened to the Monroe Doctrine, that revered 200-year-old foreign policy stance established by the fifth U.S. president, James Monroe, holding that any major intervention in the Western Hemisphere – i.e., North, Central or South America – by a foreign power constitutes a potentially hostile act against the U.S.?
U.S.-based China expert Gordon Chang – author of several books about China’s barely disguised plans to dominate the world, including his 2024 bestseller, “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America” – says the Panama Canal has long been a “chokepoint” that Beijing wants to control.
And as Secretary of State Marco Rubio told SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly on Jan. 30: “If the government in China in a conflict tells them to shut down the Panama Canal, they will have to. And in fact, I have zero doubt that they have contingency planning to do so. That is a direct threat.”
Indeed, as WorldNetDaily reported in February, shortly after Rubio expressed to Panama’s leadership President Trump’s concerns over Chinese influence over the canal, Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulina stated that he would not renew a 2017 “memorandum of understanding” by which Panama joined China’s “Belt and Road Initiative.”
“Under that program, China funds the construction and development of infrastructure, such as ports, and then takes control of them for its own profit and empire building,” WND reported, adding: “In the case of the canal, [China] has worked on ports at both ends, creating the possibility that it could shut down the canal if it seemed in the best interests of the Chinese Communist Party. It also has been building bridges over the canal, which would offer the same option.”
Rubio explained to Panamanian officials that “the United States cannot, and will not, allow the Chinese Communist Party to continue with its effective and growing control over the Panama Canal area.” And in Congress, a bill has been introduced directing the U.S. to negotiate the repurchase of the canal from Panama.
Meanwhile, Trump’s March 4 prime-time announcement that “a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal” referred to BlackRock, the huge U.S.-based investment and asset-management firm. BlackRock purchased the critical ports from CK Hutchison Holdings Limited, officially described as a “Hong Kong-based and Cayman Islands-registered multinational conglomerate corporation” formed in 2015 by a merger of Cheung Kong Holdings and its main associate company Hutchison Whampoa.
However, just as with most things concerning Communist China, massive subterfuge and deception are involved. For Hutchinson Whampoa – as a few reality-based media organizations have noted, including this RealClearHistory analysis from January – has been identified as “a front Chinese company that was owned by Chinese military intelligence.” In the report, author Miguel A. Faria succinctly demystifies China’s longtime control of the Panama Canal:
The United States built the Panama Canal early in the 20th century with American sweat, toil and money, only to give it away to a leftwing Panamanian dictator via a dubious treaty. The Panamanians, in turn, ceded the Canal to Hutchison Whampoa, a front Chinese company that was owned by Chinese military intelligence. At about the same time, another Chinese front organization, the Hong Kong-based Hutchinson Port Holdings, obtained a 50-year lease to operate the two strategic ports at either end of the Panama Canal. Thus, in case of hostilities, U.S. shipping routes would be cut off and bottled up in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, encircled by the Chinese and their allies Cuba, Venezuela and Panama. To this day, the Chinese deny that they control the Panama Canal, and the American media seem to believe them. President-elect Donald Trump does not.
Indeed, the American media have rarely if ever sounded the alarm over this serious threat to U.S. security located right in “America’s backyard” (as Central and South America are commonly referred to in the U.S. global security context). Legacy media stories today instead obsess over Trump’s supposed “expansionist agenda,” his “land grab” obsession and his dangerous vision of “a new U.S. imperialism.”
There are a few exceptions, however, including WorldNetDaily, one of the only American media organizations that has sounded the alarm not just recently – but for decades. More than 25 years ago – before the canal was even turned over to the left-wing Panamanian government – WND founder Joseph Farah was passionately making virtually the same arguments Trump has been making during his second term as president.
In “Clinton’s Panama Canal admission,” published Dec. 1, 1999, just weeks before Carter’s “gift” of the canal to Panama would take effect (one of many articles Farah wrote during the late ’90s warning about Chinese control of the vital waterway), he focused on then-President Bill Clinton’s public admission that, indeed, China was running the Panama Canal!
Was it a Freudian slip? Was it a gaffe? Or was it President Clinton finally being honest about something for the first time in his life?
I refer to the statement he made yesterday with regard to the Panama Canal transfer to a group of reporters in the Oval Office before leaving for the West Coast. …
Here it is, folks. Hold on to your hats – especially all of you people who scoffed when I began telling you three years ago that the Communist Chinese were taking over the Panama Canal.
“I think the Chinese will in fact be bending over backwards to make sure that they run it in a competent and able and fair manner,” Clinton said. That’s verbatim. Those are his words, not mine. Clinton, who has until now denied that the Chinese were to take control of the strategic canal, admitted it publicly.
And, as if to underline his admission and seemingly to ensure there could be no misunderstanding of his words, Clinton elaborated. … He compared the operation of the canal to China’s campaign to win admission to the World Trade Organization, which sets the rules for global trade.
“They’ll want to demonstrate to a distant part of the world that they can be a responsible partner,” the president said. “And I would be very surprised if any adverse consequences flowed from the Chinese running the canal.”
Oh, absolutely. Responsible. Partner. Competent. Fair. Those are all words I readily associate in my mind with the totalitarian government in Beijing. Don’t you?
Well, there you have it, folks. Goodbye Panama Canal. The Bamboo Curtain just moved into the Western Hemisphere – officially, that is.
After all, I gave you this history long ago. I told you about the fact that a Chinese government company – a front for the military – Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., was to begin operation of the ports on both ends of the strategic waterway Jan. 1. It has been the Clinton administration and its many apologists in Congress and the press who have laughed, ridiculed the idea. Chinese military shill Alexander Haig suggested I should be jailed for making such accusations.
And now the truth has finally come out through an unusually candid admission by Clinton. He is telling us now what has been obvious to anyone familiar with the transfer of the canal. He is admitting what former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Thomas Moorer stated in our pages some time back.
Clinton says we can rely on the good intentions of the Chinese to maintain access to the canal. Doesn’t that reassure you? The Chinese, who, as we speak, are rounding up tens of thousands of religious dissidents and interning them, threatening to attack Taiwan and working overtime on developing military technology that could only be used to attack the United States, should be trusted on this Panama Canal deal because it’s a chance for them to show how responsible they really are.
This is nuts!
When are the American people going to wake up? Clinton is so embarrassed by this deal on the canal that he is not even going to attend the transfer ceremonies. Why? If he doesn’t have any second thoughts and believes giving away the Panama Canal to a hostile foreign power is still a good idea, why not go wave the flag next month at the ceremony?
… If ever there was a time – an opportunity – to pressure the politicians to reverse what will someday be judged a historic blunder, it is now. If you really have the guts to stop this thing, America, wake up and take action now. You won’t have to risk your life to write a letter to your senators and representatives in Washington or fill out a simple online petition today.
Your kids, however, may someday pay for our mistakes with their blood if you sit silent through this official treachery.
The same day, Dec. 1, 1999, this writer published a detailed news article on WND, headlined “In 2000, it’s China Canal,” which included exclusive comments from former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Thomas Moorer, who assured WorldNetDaily that China’s takeover of the canal “would be catastrophic for the U.S.”
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Executive Orders History – American Minute with Bill Federer
Executive Orders are not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, but Article 2, Section 3, does say the President is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Executive Orders are Presidential directives to his staff, or government officials and agencies, having the force of law. Initially, they were not distinguished from Presidential Proclamations, Memorandums, and Letters.
Executive Orders were not numbered until 1907, when they were then retroactively assigned back to 1862. There are over 1,500 unnumbered Executive Orders.
In 1936, the Federal Register Act required that Executive Orders be documented and made public.
George Washington issued 8 Executive Orders.
His first was when war between England and France was beginning, and he issued an Executive Order for American citizens to stay neutral.
Since there was not a clear way of enforcing it, when Congress came back in session, it supported Washington by passing the Neutrality Act of 1794.
Lincoln issued 48 Executive Orders, saying
“to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States.”
His first Executive Order was at the outset of the Civil War. Democrat John Merryman organized riots in Maryland which attacked Union troops and destroyed telegraph lines. Local Democrat law enforcement refused to arrest him.
Lincoln considered him a public threat and issued an Executive Order to arrest him.
There was a problem, though, as his arrest violated Merryman’s right of habeas corpus, which required law enforcement to first bring the accused before a judge with evidence before locking him in jail.
Before the Supreme Court had a chance to determine if Lincoln had over-stepped his authority, Congress supported Lincoln by passing the Habeas Corpus Act of 1863.
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which was an Executive Order to free the slaves. Congress considered this an overreach of his authority.
Lincoln responded by pushing Congress to ratify the 13th Amendment.
Theodore Roosevelt greatly expanded the use of Executive Orders, issuing 1,081 of them.
His attitude was, instead of seeing if the Constitution authorized him, he would issue Executive Orders unless the Constitution specifically prohibited him.
He wrote in his autobiography:
“My view was that every executive officer … was a steward of the people bound … to do all he could for the people … anything that the needs of the Nation demanded unless such action was forbidden by the Constitution ….
Under this interpretation of executive power I did … many things not previously done by the President … I did not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power.”
What one President does, however, is often outdone by subsequent Presidents.
Thus President Woodrow Wilson issued 1,803 Executive Orders, claiming the emergency of World War I justified it.
During the Great Depression and World War II, Franklin Roosevelt issued a record 3,721 Executive Orders.
By an Executive Order, Roosevelt confiscated all gold held by private citizens.
He closed all banks in the country for four days.
He created agencies, like the Works Progress Administration – WPA, and the Office of Censorship.
He seized private businesses, including mines and factories, such as the North American Aviation plant in California.
Congress supported Roosevelt’s orders by passing the War Labor Disputes Act of 1943.
Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which rounded up 122,000 Japanese-Americans and confined in internment camps in the desert.
The Supreme Court backed up Roosevelt in the 1944 case of Korematsu v. U.S.
Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8807 to establish the Manhattan Project which created the atomic bomb. Truman did not learn about it until a day after Roosevelt died.
President Truman issued 908 Executive Orders, with a notable one being desegregating the military.
During the Korean War, Truman tried doing what Roosevelt and Wilson did, but this time, Congress and the Courts pushed back.
When union steel workers went on strike in 1951, Truman issued an Executive Order seizing control of all the steel manufacturing plants in the nation.
The Supreme Court limited Truman in the 1952 Youngstown case, saying:
“Presidential powers are not fixed but fluctuate depending upon their disjunction or conjunction with those of Congress … When the President acts pursuant to … authorization of Congress, his authority is at its maximum.”
Eisenhower issued 484 Executive Orders, one of which deployed troops to desegregate Arkansas schools.
John F. Kennedy issued 214 Executive Orders, one of which, EO 10924, created the Peace Corp and another, EO 10973, created USAID.
Lyndon Johnson issued 325 Executive Orders. One was to demand affirmative action be pushed on all federal contractors.
This was eventually struck down by the Supreme Court in 2023.
Another, EO 11130, created the Warren Commission to investigate the Kennedy assassination, which many now suspect was to cover up evidence of his involvement.
Gerald Ford issued 169 Executive Orders, one of which pardoned Richard Nixon.
Jimmy Carter issued 320 Executive Orders, one of which, EO 12127, created FEMA.
Another promoted wage and price controls, including setting the price of oil with Executive Order 12153.
When the Iran crisis took place, Carter issued an Executive Order freezing all Iranian assets in the U.S.
Ronald Reagan issued 381 Executive Orders, many of which peeled back layers of government regulation that hampered economic growth.
Bill Clinton issued 364 Executive Orders, saying: “Stroke of the pen, law of the land. Kind of cool.”
One of his Executive Orders prohibited replacements for striking union workers, which the courts reversed.
George W. Bush issued 291 Executive Orders. One limited the public from seeing presidential documents.
After 911, by Executive Order 13228, Bush created the Department of Homeland Security.
He then instituted government surveillance of American citizens without a warrant, even authorizing the NSA National Security Agency to eavesdrop on citizens’ phone calls.
Obama issued 276 Executive Orders, saying: “We are not just going to be waiting for legislation … I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.”
Obama issued Executive Order 13707 titled “Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People,” which authorized the Federal government to secretly use media to carry out psychological operations on the American public.
President Donald Trump issued 220 Executive Orders in his first term.
Biden issued 162 Executive orders, many of which revered Trumps Executive Orders.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Biden issued Executive Order 14079, to continue ending of the lives of unborn children.
In the first month of Trump’s second term, by Executive Proclamation, he freed J6 prisoners.
He issued more than 70 Executive Orders, including:
recognizing only two sexes (EO 14168);
keeping men out of women’s sports (EO 14201);
protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation (EO 14187);
ending radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling (EO 13985);
ending DEI (EO 14151);
establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (EO 14158);
securing the borders (EO 14165);
withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization (EO 14155);
withdrawing from Paris climate agreement (EO 14162);
designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations (EO 14157);
protecting Second Amendment rights (14206);
freeing up land for oil drilling (14154);
declassifying records of the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (EO 14176);
renaming national monuments, including renaming the Gulf of America (EO 14172); and
eradicating anti-Christian bias (EO 14202), stating:
“The United States Constitution enshrines the fundamental right to religious liberty in the First Amendment …
Yet the previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians … bringing Federal criminal charges and … multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying … outside abortion facilities.
Those convicted included a Catholic priest and 75-year-old grandmother, as well as an 87-year-old woman and a father of 11 children who were arrested 18 months after praying and singing hymns outside an abortion facility … part of a politically motivated prosecution campaign by the Biden Administration … a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memorandum asserted that “radical-traditionalist” Catholics were domestic-terrorism threats …
The Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sought to force Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology against their faith …
The Biden Administration declared March 31, 2024 — Easter Sunday — as ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’ …
Catholic churches and institutions have been aggressively targeted with hundreds of acts of hostility, violence, and vandalism …
My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians.”
Since these Executive Orders can be reversed by any future President, it is up to Congress to pass laws supporting the President’s directives.
The Liberator, February 21, 2025, published Mat Staver’s article “Codifying Executive Orders into Law to Secure a Legacy”:
“Executive Orders should be seen as a launching pad for legislation that Congress needs to set in stone.
The federal government was given a clear mandate from the American people in 2024 — Congress must ensure this mandate is not one presidential action away from erasure.“
—
Friend of Camp Constitution Ed Martin Nominated by President Trump for D.C. Attorney
Long-time friend of Camp Constitution, head of the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, and host of The Pro America Report radio show was chosen by President Trump to be the U.S. Attorney of Washington, D.C. While his appointment didn’t sit well with the left-wing media, we are delighted to hear the news. Ed is currently serving as the acting D.C. Attorney and needs Senate confirmation. Our prayers are with him and his family.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
It is my honor to nominate highly respected Edward R. Martin, Jr., for the full and permanent term of United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Ed has led a distinguished career of service, including as Human Rights Office Director for the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis, where he supervised legal clinics for low-income residents. He later worked as judicial clerk to Judge Pasco M. Bowman, II, of the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals, and launched his own successful Law practice. He has also invested his expertise in other roles, but always with the same goal, of serving his community, and creating a brighter future for all.
Since Inauguration Day, Ed has been doing a great job as Interim U.S. Attorney, fighting tirelessly to restore Law and Order, and make our Nation’s Capital Safe and Beautiful Again. He will get the job done.
Camp Constitution Director Hal Shurtleff was a guest on Ed’s Show on a number of occasions.
And in September 2017, Hal interviewed Ed about his book that he co-authored with Phyllis Schlafly:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2017-09-11T06_13_01-07_00
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.”
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(Reposted with permission from WND.)