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Patriotism & America 250 blog
How to check any claim about a president in under an hourA seven-step method with free primary sources lets any reader test a claim about a president. A worked example tests a famous claim about Lincoln.Your questions about Republican presidents answered from the recordWho was first, who died in office, who resigned, who won 49 states and what the 22nd Amendment did: fourteen questions answered from verifiable facts.Six Myths About the Founders and the Constitution You Can Correct TodaySix popular claims about the Founders and the Constitution, from pure democracy to the phrase separation of church and state, checked against the documents.Frederick Douglass stayed a Republican all his life and told people whyDouglass judged parties by what they did for freed people and found the Republicans were the only national vehicle for it.What Tocqueville saw in American clubs and why conservatives still quote himA young Frenchman toured America in 1831 and found a nation that solves problems by joining things. Here is what he saw and why conservatives still cite it.Douglass Called the Constitution a Glorious Liberty Document and Meant ItThe Founders owned slaves, so their ideals are worthless, the charge goes. Frederick Douglass, who knew slavery firsthand, said otherwise. Here is his case.A Conservative Can Love His Country Without Worshiping the GovernmentPatriotism is loyalty to a people, a place and an inheritance, not to whoever holds office. Washington, Lincoln and the Pledge's history show the difference.Seven claims about God and the founding, tested against the recordBoth the secular left and the religious right overstate the founders' faith, so here are seven popular claims tested against the documents, with a verdict.Where Rights Come From, and Why the Declaration Says So FirstThe Declaration treats rights as older than government, and that is the practical difference between a right and a permission slip.Becoming an American Citizen Step by Step, From Green Card to OathNaturalization takes years of residence, a test of English and civics, a character check and a public oath. Here are the steps in order, with what to expect.The Founders' Partisan Press Was Far Nastier Than Anything on Your FeedThe first generation of Americans ran openly partisan papers and thought that was healthy. Their story is a cure for nostalgia about a neutral press.From the Emancipation Proclamation to the 13th Amendment in Dated StepsA dated timeline of how Republicans turned a wartime proclamation into a constitutional amendment, who fought it at each step, and why each date mattered.Why the Founders wrote the Second Amendment after Lexington and ConcordThe amendment grew from lived experience: a Crown that went after colonists' powder and arms, and a generation raised to distrust standing armies.Baptists, Madison and the Virginia fight that put religious liberty firstReligious liberty was won by dissenting believers and Enlightenment statesmen who agreed that forced worship makes neither true faith nor good government.Abraham Lincoln ran a party of free soil, free labor and free menLincoln's Republicans were an opportunity party as much as an antislavery one, and the laws of 1862 show the agenda that still shapes the American dream.