Category: USA
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Thank George Washington for Thanksgiving.
It wasn’t the pilgrims that gave us our modern understanding of Thanksgiving. Nor was it Lincoln’s Thanksgiving declaration during the Civil War. It was our first president, George Washington, who proclaimed, from New York City on October 3, 1789 our first Thanksgiving – a day set aside to thank God for the blessings of the…
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Happy Thanksgiving from Abraham Lincoln
On this Thanksgiving, it is, perhaps, appropriate to go back to Abraham Lincoln’s words from his Thankgiving Proclamation to give us all some perspective. For Lincoln, Thanksgiving was about acknowledging the mercies of God in the midst of the great civil war the country was embroiled in. And here, in 2016, we may not be…
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Is the 2016 Election really about the Supreme Court?
There are currently 8 justices on the Supreme Court. The oldest ones are as follows: Ruth Bader Ginsburg – age 83 (liberal) Anthony Kennedy – age 80 (seen as a swing vote between the conservative and liberal wings of the Supreme Court) Steven Beyer – age 78 (liberal) Of course, the 9th seat, currently vacant,…
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Neither Jew nor Greek: The Church and the Civil Rights Movement
I appreciate Kimberly Horton allowing me to publish her very interesting paper on various Christian denominations’ responses to the Civil Rights Movement. It’s an area I had not previously given much thought to, but as you will see, it’s an area where the view of the church and Christian charity towards equal rights for African…
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Did Truman Start the Vietnam War?
The headline is purposefully provocative. How could Truman, who came on the scene after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945, have started the Vietnam War of two decades later? He didn’t, of course, but the case could be made, and was made in my thesis, that Truman instituted a policy shift towards Indochina which set the…
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Know Your History: 1896 Plessy v. Furgeson
In 1892, Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting on a white rail car. Homer was extremely light skinned and could have passed for a white person, but under the law of Louisiana, he wasn’t ‘white enough’. The case, which eventually made it to the Supreme Court in 1896, centered around Louisiana’s segregation laws and whether…
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A Presidential, Federal, Capitalistic, Representative Democracy
What type of government is the United States of America? A presidential, federal, capitalistic, representative democracy! A mouthful, for sure. Can’t we just say republic? Nope! Can’t we just say democracy? Serious lacking! Can’t we just say federal? Think again. All four of those descriptions are needed to truly understand how our government works because…
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Essay: A Historical Overview of Vietnam from WWII through the Vietnam War
From time to time, I like to post complete essays of mine which touch upon topics near and dear to my heart. If you know me, you won’t be surprised that this one is about Vietnam. I try to give a broad overview of the historical context which led to the Vietnam War of the…
Author Mark W Sasse 