Fragile Freedom

Even before he had sent out the letter not even ten days prior Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis knew that the cause had been lost. Even as the 187 volunteers who stood guard within the mission walls looked out on the sea of 3,000 Mexican soldiers under the command of the Napoleon of the West, General Antioni López de Santa Anna, they knew how outnumbered they truly were. In their minds this was not how it was meant to be, and there was little doubt they had wondered how it had carried this far. Mexico was supposed to be a land of opportunity for them. It had only declared its independence from Spain 4 years prior when Americans began to immigrate. The Panic of 1819 had led to financial disaster as depression gripped the economy and land prices soared. The Second Bank of the United States, and, in turn, the government had failed the people as the inflationary bubble ballooned out of control, until it finally burst. Mexico, despite the political instability, seemed like it was the new frontier with its

Monfort Browne, Lieutenant Governor of the Bahamas, was still dressed in his nightshirt when he rushed from Government House to order the alarm sound. The cannons would ring in the air, alerting the militia of the imminent attack.  The American fleet had been spotted off of the coast of Nassau and it was only a matter of time now before the raid commenced. The sound in the distance would be a disappointment to Commodore Esek Hopkins. He had ignored orders. Told by the Continental Congress to patrol the shores of Virginia, and North and South Carolina, conducting raids on British forces spotted off their coasts, he chose instead to set sail for Nassau. It was no secret that John Murray, Lord Dunmore, the Colonial Governor of Virginia, had ordered the removal of British stockpiles of weapons and gunpowder, sending them to New Providence in the Bahamas to keep these stores from being captured by Colonial Rebels. Now Dunmore was using those weapons to launch his own assaults, particularly off the coast of Virgini

The Inauguration of the 19th President was but three days away. The problem was that though the election had been held four month prior, there was little telling who that would have been. New York Governor Samuel Tilden had won the popular vote by over 280,000, he had a clear majority of 50.9% to Ohio Governor Rutherford B. Hayes 47.9%. What’s more is he had to believe that he had edged out his Republican opponent in the Electoral College. He had taken 184 seats, one shy of the majority he needed to be sworn in, compared to Haye’s 165. With 19 out of the 20 electors in question being from the South, Tilden had to believe that he could manage to pick up 1 state before his opponent in that bitterly fought race would take all 20. After all, even if Hayes did take those three states, which seemed unlikely, Oregon Governor LaFayette Grover had given him the vote he needed when he replaced a Republican Elector John Watts with Democrat C.A. Cronin. The truth was that the Democrats had every right to believe that the

Prime Ministers didn’t last long as one administration quickly gave way to another. Since the Ministry of Henry Pelham ended under the reign of George II in 1754, Great Britain had seen seven men, and eight administrations holding office for no more than two to three years apiece. That was until the rise of Frederick North as he ascended to the First Ministry For twelve years, twelve long years, with the full support and consent of George III, he would preside over the most powerful Empire of the world. Yet there was little doubt that time had taken its toll, aging the 49 year old perhaps the full measure of a lifetime in little over a decade. Even before his rise the American situation was beginning to steam. Within his first three month in office it would boil over. Within 6 years protests had turn to violence, violence to open defiance, and defiance to revolution as the American colonies asserted their Independence from the Court of Saint James. Perhaps, at times, he knew he was in over his head. Even as h

Is the Travel Ban issued by President Trump actually unconstitutional? Does it overstep the authority and the power that has been given to the President? In this episode of Fragile Freedom host Wyatt McIntyre takes on the question of the Trump Travel Ban that has been all over the news, taking a trip through time to discuss what power the President has in setting immigration policy and what power the judiciary has in reviewing those policies. Starting with the Alien and Sedition Acts he moves through the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Johnson-Reed Act straight through to measures issued by President's Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Barack Obama to see what previous Administrations were allowed. From there he looks at decisions rendered in the Chae Chan Ping v. United States, United States v. Ju Toy, and Harisiades v. Shaughnessy to determine what the courts have said in the past regarding their power with regards to Judicial Review of Immigration Policy. With these cases in hand he works through the preceden

When Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster was offered the Vice Presidency on the Whig ticket of 1840 he declared, “I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead.” It was, as the nation’s first Vice President, John Adams described, largely viewed as “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” It was not an office often marred with controversy or struggle, at least not like the Presidency, whose elections had, more often than not, turned into brutal political blood sports. Then there was the man who became the only Vice President in history to be selected by the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment, as the Senate met on February 8th, 1837 to elect Richard Mentor Johnson as the 9th Vice President of the United State. The truth was that Colonel Johnson, Congressman from Kentucky, was not Martin Van Buren’s first choice. He wasn’t Van Buren’s choice at all He wanted Virginia Congressman William Cabell Rives, a man who had begun his career studying la

It was Thomas Jefferson who lamented that slavery would ultimately be the “rock upon which the old Union would split." Now the hammer had come down, and it came down hard. Already six states, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana and Georgia, declared themselves to be free and sovereign states, separating themselves from the Union. Even as pamphlets with titles like “The South Alone Should Govern the South” circulated radical elements wove their way through Southern society to take hold, rejecting any form of compromise. Despite the efforts of its Governor, Sam Houston, a Constitutional Unionist, the Legislature reaffirmed the Texas Secessionist Convention. Voting with the six states that had already left, all that was needed now were the results of a referendum later that month. Yet none who left, or who were looking to leave had any intention of standing alone. Even before Abraham Lincoln would be sworn in as the 16th President of the United States, they would have a Republic of their own

Secession was “a right unknown in the Constitution”, one that, without doubt or question, would ultimately lead to “anarchy and war”, at least that would be what James G. Taliaferro, Delegate to the Louisiana Secessionist Convention, would argue as the state debated its place in the Union. Only 58 years earlier the territory had been purchased from the French at 3 cents per acre, but the US ban on the African slave trade and importation had created prosperity and it flourished. By 1840, only 28 years since it had been admitted as a full state, its premier city, New Orleans had grown to one of the largest and wealthiest in the country. Even as the population of the Bayou state grew to almost three quarters of a million, they knew that everything relied on the 47 to 48 percent of the population that lived in the bonds of that brutal and bitter subjugation known by that simple word: Slavery. They could not and would not abide under a President that would rip from them what they considered their property, and, in

Watching the protesters take to the street it is hard to ignore the defiant shouts of "Not My President" or the signs that claim "Illegitimate President." Since November there have been any number of people who have been horrified by the election results, and have found themselves trying to figure out a way to keep him from moving forward with his agenda. Having tried to move the Electoral College to support another candidate and failing the focus of some have turned to other methods. Among these methods, is the call to Impeach Trump. Even before he was sworn in, and less than a day after, people advocated using Article II, Section Four of the Constitution to remove President Trump from office. Yet no cause can be shown as to why except that they do not like him. They do not like his agenda, and they do not agree with his platform, he has made appointments to Cabinet they don't like and spoke and acted in ways they don't like. At it's heart is a call to essentially politicize the impeachment process and make

The lines were being drawn. Abraham Lincoln had been elected the 16th President of the United States. Whatever concessions, whatever favor the South might have found under the Administration of James Buchanan, they knew it was quickly drawing to a close as the March Inauguration of the Republican from Illinois fast approached. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama had already seceded from the Union. They would not suffer a man who would deprive them of their slaves. To them slavery was more than an economic institution, though their prosperity could not long stand without it, it was a moral one as well. Yet these four states that had since left were not the only states that relied on brutal subjugation for financial security and stability and soon, they knew other states would join their cause. On January 19th, 1861 Georgia would be the fifth state to hear that call, declaring, “that the union now existing between the State of Georgia and other States under the name of the United States of America

It had only been four years since Brigadier-General Daniel Morgan had been returned in an exchange, having been taken prisoner by the British following defeat at the Battle of Quebec. Ever defiant, the man who once took a bullet to the back of the neck, knocking out teeth, and had received 499 lashes from a British whip for knocking out a British Lieutenant who struck him with the flat end of his sword, bragging they still owed him one more, he had surrendered his sword to a French-Canadian Priest rather than offer it to the Colony’s Governor, General Guy Carleton. Even as his 500 handpicked riflemen had help secure victory at the Battle of Saratoga, it was clear to General Washington that the trade had paid off. Now, he and his troops had been sent South to assist General Nathanael Greene in his under gunned and under manned efforts in South Carolina. Greene’s plans were simple, he would use the highly-trained riflemen in guerilla warfare, knowing that though they were outnumbered they could plunge a knife i

Until this point, the states that seceded from the Union had been perhaps more diplomatic when it came to their Ordinances of Secession, passing sweeping statements rather than commentaries on the current political climate or tensions that had arose with the election of 1860. Though the undertones were there, the closest mention even to slavery was the term “Property” used two days prior when Mississippi declared its own intention to withdraw from the United States. Then, on January 11th, 1861 Alabama became the fourth State to declare itself free of the Constitution and the authority of the Federal Government in Washington D.C.. The language was plain, and without any pretexts, as it declared: Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions

One of the original Thirteen Colonies, South Carolina had signed the Declaration of Independence and was the 8th State to ratify the Constitution on May 23rd, 1788. Mississippi had been a state for now over 40 years. It was reaching the point where only the older generation remembered when it was an open territory against the vast western frontier. Though not as young as Oregon or Minnesota or California, Florida, on the other hand, had only been a state for 15 years, only just over half a year older than Texas. It was entirely possible that there had been many in the state who remembered what it was like before the Florida Purchase Treaty ceded the Spanish territory to the US in 1822, combining East and West Florida into the Florida Territory. Yet on January 10th, 1861, Florida would become the third state to secede from the Union. Once declared a “Free and Independent State” in its Constitution, it was now ready to declare itself an “Sovereign and Independent Nation” in an open convention that agreed by a v

Only a few weeks prior, on December 20th, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, becoming the first state to leave. Even before then tension had been building with the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. With roughly 40% of the popular vote but almost 60% of the Electoral College, there was little doubt that he would be sworn in as the 16th President of the United States. It was a prospect that many in the South refused to live with. To them the Constitution created a voluntary union rather than a binding one, and they had the right to peaceably leave at any point. On January 9th, 1861, almost two months before the Inauguration of the President-Elect, Mississippi, the 20th state to be admitted into the Union, became the second state to exercise what they believed to be their right. Congressman Lucius Lamar would draft, “An ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of Mississippi and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America’”,

By September of 1780 the plans of the brilliant commander Major-General Benedict Arnold to surrender West Point, New York to the British had been exposed. Heavily indebted, having spent the majority of his fortune on the War Effort, injured in battle, with his shattered leg set so crudely it was then two inches shorter than the other, forcing him to walk with a cane, and watching as others took credit for his victories and successes, investigated by the Continental Congress for corruption, court-marshalled, and passed up for promotion, he had lost faith in the colonial cause of independence. Fleeing to the British, he would receive a commission as a Brigadier-General and orders from General Sir Henry Clinton, Commander-in-Chief of North America: bring Virginia back into the Imperial Fold. The January 5th, 1781 Raid on Richmond was not necessarily a surprise. Even as Arnold sailed his 1,600 Green Coats up the James River, destroying plantations, and laying waste to the towns along the route to Westover, he had

As Lord Charles Cornwallis confidently marched his 9,000 troops towards Trenton he believed that he had him. He would overwhelm the exhausted Continental Army 5,000 troops strong, and push them back. Even as he ordered his soldiers back for the evening he would arrogantly proclaim, “We've got the old fox safe now. We'll go over and bag him in the morning.” He would capture General Washington and deliver a deathblow to the colonial rebellion that had dared to proclaim its independence from the Empire not even half a year prior.  Yes, he knew that the crafty American General would be too wise to face a force of regulars that outnumbered his forces almost 2 to 1, especially worn and weary from battle, and would more than likely seek to flee. Yet General Cornwallis would not be denied his victory or that swift end to hostilities. He would send soldiers to guard the Delaware, believing that Washington would once more cross where he had initially launched his winter campaign on the evening of the 25th/morning of th

When the Texas War of Independence ended on April 21st, 1836 there were many in the newly formed Southern Republic that believed it would be openly welcomed into the United States as a part of the Union. Yet, there was more to consider than just territorial expansion. President Andrew Jackson had remained neutral on the issue during the Revolution that begun in his final year in office, believing that Texas wouldn’t be able to stand alone or maintain its independence against the newly formed Centralist Republic of Mexico. As the slavery question raged on he didn’t want to give an issue to the anti-slavery candidates by recognizing the large slaveholding nation that, in his opinion, was doomed to failure. Martin Van Buren, his successor, would recognize Texas as free and independent in 1837 but he was unwilling to welcome a new state that would ultimately shift the equilibrium struck with the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which established the balance of free versus slave states in the Union. At any rate Mexico re

There was little doubt that the John C. Calhoun who began his career as a Congressman representing the 6th District of South Carolina and who rose to serve as James Monroe’s Secretary of War, was a different man politically than the John C. Calhoun who was overwhelmingly selected to serve as the 7th Vice President of the United States under both John Quincy Adams and his successor Andrew Jackson. A supporter of protective tariffs, he would begin to oppose them and where he once advocated a strong Federal Government, his allegiances began to shift towards State’s Rights, and limited, more restrained authority. It would be this political realignment that would, on December 28th, 1832, lead him to become the first Vice President to resign the Office. The significance of Calhoun leaving the office was not in the fact that he had. Former Senator and Governor of New York turned Secretary of State Martin Van Buren would already be elected to replace Calhoun as Jackson’s Vice President. Increasingly at odds with Pres

When we hear The Battle of New Orleans General Andrew Jackson is perhaps the first person who comes to mind. His name would become immortalized in story and song defending the Southern city that had only become a part of the United States just over a decade prior with the Louisiana Purchase. Yet, in late 1814, it was Daniel Patterson who foresaw the British attack on New Orleans. In the middle of September he lead a force to the Southern Louisiana Base of the notorious Jean Lafitte at Barataria Bay, where, in routing the pirate, he laid claim to his ships, bringing the French-American Pirate to the aid of the American cause. General Jackson wanted Commodore Patterson to sail with his small makeshift fleet to Mobile Bay to engage the British. Patterson would refuse. To engage the vastly superior British navy there would allow for them to bottlenecked. His small fleet at that inlet to the Gulf of Mexico, making them an easy target. Instead he set about laying the defense of New Orleans. By December 12th sixty B

A new short segment I am hoping to begin for Fragile Freedom called A Moment in our History. ----- Having been for so many of those defining moments of the new nation, a constant guide, sacrificing tirelessly of himself as a member of the First and Second Continental Congress, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, delegate and president of the Constitutional Convention, the first President of these United States, there perhaps had to be a thought by many that even as George Washington retired, even as he once more removed himself public life he would always be there, ready to return when the struggling nation needed him, much like he had when the Articles of Confederation did not prove enough for the Republic. Yet within two years of leaving the Presidency he was gone. At dawn on December 26th, 1799 sixteen cannons would begin their bursts in Philadelphia, the national capital. They would volley every half an hour after as the Republic laid this giant of a man to rest. At noon soldiers began firing minu