Standardized testing is a controversial practice in the American public school system. Critics contend that standardized tests don&#8217;t take creativity or complex problem-solving skills into account, instead focusing solely on rote memorization. They also argue that the tests don&#8217;t serve as good predictors of future success and could be unfair to certain disadvantaged groups.
Whether those criticisms have any validity or not, they can lend some insight on the basic knowledge base of future U.S. citizens at a critical point in their education.
The U.S. history and civics tests administered by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) last year provided one such insight: a large portion of eighth graders are woefully uninformed about the nation&#8217;s history and the workings of its government.
The <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ushistory/2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">average score</a> on the eighth grade U.S. history test sunk to its lowest level since the test began in 1994. A mere 13% of students scored proficient on the test, while only 1% scored advanced. Meanwhile, 40% (4 out of 10!) of students who took the test scored below basic — up from 34% in 2018 and 29% in 2014. Overall, the average score on the test has decreased 9 points since its apex in 2014. Additionally, lower-performing students experienced a larger drop, between 6 and 7 points, compared to higher-performing students, between 3 and 5 points, from 2018 to 2022.
Average scores on particular themes in American history showed an even more drastic drop. The average score decreased 7 points on questions regarding America&#8217;s role in the world, 9 points on the themes of democracy and technology, and a whopping 11 points on questions pertaining to American culture.
The U.S. civics test <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/civics/2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> similarly disappointing results, with the test seeing its first ever drop in scores since its inception in 1998. The average score dropped 4 points from 2018 to 2022. Twenty percent of students scored proficient on the 2022 iteration of the test, and 2% scored advanced — double the percentage from the history exam. But 31% scored below basic, up from 27% in 2018.
Higher performing students saw basically no change in scores from 2018 to 2022 on the civics test, but students in the 50th percentile and lower saw a decrease of 3 points.
The news that scores have remained basically stagnant over the last several decades is punctuated by the fact that the United States <a href="https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics#:~:text=U.S.%20and%20World%20Education%20Spending&amp;text=Schools%20in%20the%20United%20States,operation%20and%20Development%20(OECD)." target="_blank" rel="noopener">maintains</a> one of the highest rates of education spending per pupil in the world.
The significant learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic almost certainly has a part to play in 2022&#8217;s dismal numbers — scores on other subjects like math and reading have also decreased. But the drop in scores on the U.S. history test had begun way before lockdowns stunted the nation&#8217;s education system. Another partial explanation for why students&#8217; knowledge of America&#8217;s past may come from what they are being taught in their history courses.
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At around the same time as history scores began to decline, critical race theory and radical gender ideology began to creep into school curricula. While CRT has seemingly infected every school subject, including seemingly non-political subjects like <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/florida-rejects-dozens-of-math-books-containing-critical-race-theory-and-other-indoctrinating-concepts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">math</a> and science, the push has been mostly concerned with reshaping students&#8217; perceptions of American history.
One of the more infamous examples of CRT infiltrating public schools was the <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/schools-1619-project-curriculum-historical-errors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">adoption</a> of NYT journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones&#8217; &#8220;1619 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/1619-project-creator-raked-in-1m-last-year-for-college-speeches-on-inequality" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Project</a>&#8221; in several school districts across the country. The &#8220;1619 Project,&#8221; originally a series of articles published in The New York Times in 2019, posited that anti-black racism has impacted every facet of American society and that American history should be viewed through the lens of racial oppression of black people by white people. The project also asserts that the true beginning point of American history is 1619, when the first African slaves were brought to Jamestown, rather than the more traditional date of 1607, when Jamestown was established.
Though the project won a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 and scored Hannah-Jones numerous accolades and lucrative speaking engagements, it was roundly criticized by prominent historians for its numerous inaccuracies, including the assertion that the United States was founded explicitly to protect slavery and that African Americans campaigned for civil rights alone. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson and Brown University Professor Gordon Wood were some of the most vocal critics of the project&#8217;s interpretation of American history. In fact, they joined with three other respected historians to <a href="https://www.cbs17.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2021/07/NYT-1619-Letter-Bennet.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">send</a> a letter to the NYT lambasting the project&#8217;s mistakes and mischaracterizations in December 2019.
&#8220;We are dismayed at some of the factual errors in the project and the closed process behind it. These errors, which concern major events, cannot be described as interpretation or &#8216;framing.&#8217; They are matters of verifiable fact, which are the foundation of honest scholarship and honest journalism,&#8221; the letter said.
Soon after it was released, the Pulitzer Center <a href="https://www.educationnext.org/1619-project-enters-american-classrooms-adding-new-sizzle-slavery-significant-cost/#:~:text=Schools%20or%20school%20districts%20in,3%2C500%20classrooms%20used%20the%20materials." target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in May 2020 that more than 3,500 classrooms had used materials related to the &#8220;1619 Project.&#8221; And that number has only grown — Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/schools-1619-project-curriculum-historical-errors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> in April 2022 that over 4,000 educators were using the materials in their classrooms.
City Journal <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/yes-critical-race-theory-is-being-taught-in-schools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released</a> a survey in October 2022 that asked recent high school graduates, aged 18 to 20, whether they had been actively taught six concepts integral to CRT. Out of 1,505 respondents from across the country, 36% <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/yes-critical-race-theory-is-being-taught-in-schools" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> they had been taught in class that &#8220;America is a systemically racist country,&#8221; 41% said they had been taught that &#8220;In America, white people have white privilege,&#8221; and 30% said that they had been taught that &#8220;America is a patriarchal society.&#8221;
Several states, including Georgia and Florida, have already taken action to ban CRT in classrooms, but some <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/project-veritas-appears-to-catch-activist-boasting-about-selling-illegal-crt-curriculum-to-indoctrinate-kids-mocking-gov-kemp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">activists</a> have already found ways of circumventing state regulations.
It should be noted that the sample questions provided in the NAEP report don&#8217;t appear to be concerned with race and gender beyond the facts. A question rated as basic by the NAEP asked why Americans supported the 18th Amendment (Prohibition), and a question rated proficient asked what European explorers were looking for when they sailed the coasts and rivers of North America in the 17th century (a water route to Asia). None of the answer choices for either question specifically mentioned race or race relations.
The sample question rated advanced did touch on race relations in the U.S. — it asked students to identify two ideas from the Constitution and/or the Declaration of Independence that Martin Luther King Jr. may have been referring to in a specific part of his &#8220;I Have A Dream&#8221; speech from 1963. Unlike the previous questions, it was not multiple choice, and students would be required to write their own answers in short sentences. According to NAEP, only 6% of students who took the test gave a complete answer to the question.
With reportedly thousands of teachers more interested in peddling thoroughly debunked pseudo-history to young students rather than teaching the facts, it may not be a surprise that their knowledge of American history is lacking. With more and more instruction time going toward pushing an ideological agenda, there is necessarily less time to cover the facts tested on the NAEP&#8217;s exam. If the CRT push continues, a whole generation of future citizens could finish their education with an incomplete, and oftentimes warped, view of their own nation&#8217;s history.

Desks and chairs arranged in classroom at high school

8th Graders’ History Scores Are The Lowest Ever, But Is It Really A Shock Given What They’re Being Taught?

8th Graders' History Scores Are The Lowest Ever, But Is It Really A Shock Given What They're Being Taught?

1619 Project

American History

Department of Education

Education

History

Readers Pass

U.S.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
While the most famous passage from the Declaration of Independence stands today as a rallying cry for freedom and the bedrock of American commitment to civil liberties, when a committee first drafted it, the symbolism was not so simple.
“At the time they presented a serious challenge to the founders of our nation,” Robert George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, explained. “Could they create a governing structure that would match the high moral standards they had set for themselves?”
Their initial attempt, the Articles of Confederation, was largely unsuccessful: while it did see America through the Revolutionary War, the government was toothless and had no real power over the states – and since significant changes were not possible unless all the states were on board, nothing got done. At the time, many observers at home and abroad believed the entire system would collapse.
The Constitutional Convention was called in 1787 to rectify this – its stronger federal government was checked with a separation of powers between the branches of government and between the federal government and the states to balance the need for central authority against the danger that authority might pose to individual rights.
The First Congress would ratify a Bill of Rights soon after the new Constitution was adopted to further enshrine and defend those individual liberties. But the centrality of freedom to the American project posed a fundamental problem to the burgeoning nation.
“How could America espouse freedom, and also permit slavery?” George asked.
Many of the Founding Fathers, including Presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, were slaveholders who had inherited sizable plantations themselves, although they were keenly aware that slavery was a gross contradiction of the ideals of liberty they had bled for. 
Both men condemned slavery in their own time and made limited efforts to combat it or halt its spread – Jefferson pushed for an end to the international slave trade, and Washington freed all his slaves in his will and set aside financial support for them.
“I tremble for my country when I think that God is just,” Jefferson said, “That his justice cannot sleep forever.”
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While some have condemned the Constitution and other founding American documents as corrupt because of the moral impurity of their authors, George points out that every known civilization in human history up until that point had practiced slavery and that human beings are flawed and limited creatures. The founders did not perfectly condemn slavery, but they instantiated ideals that were fundamentally opposed to it, at great sacrifice and personal risk, and their ideals and example would be used to ultimately bring the practice to an end.
“We do not celebrate these and the other founders for their personal moral failures,” George said. “We celebrate them for their unique moral achievements….To judge these documents [The Declaration of Independence, The U.S. Constitution, and The Bill of Rights] as corrupt because imperfect men wrote them is, to say the least, foolish.”
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="The Constitution: A Moral Challenge" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gz7wsz-Q8YM?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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PragerU Constitution

The Constitution: A Moral Challenge

Constitution

Declaration of Independence

Founding Fathers

Media

Politics

PragerU

Slavery

CAMDEN, S.C. — On April 22nd, in the middle of a longleaf pine tree forest just north of Camden, South Carolina, Apache helicopters thundered over a large crowd gathered in front of 13 wooden coffins.
It was a grand gesture to honor the lives of a handful of revolutionary-era soldiers whose remains were recently discovered. 242 years earlier, two armies met at the Battle of Camden in a fierce contest where the cries of teenage soldiers could be heard as the American colonies struggled to gain independence.
The South Carolina Battleground Preservation <a href="https://www.scbattlegroundtrust.org/">Trust</a> decided to honor the soldiers with a proper funeral service and ceremony out on the battlefield.
The 13 soldiers uncovered in September 2022 included 12 patriots and one Scottish Highlander who fought for the British. Historians, preservationist groups, state authorities, and others then decided it would only be proper to give the soldiers a Christian funeral service and battlefield honors.
“These men and boys, but they were boys only in age, were and are soldiers,” said historian Rick Wise, referencing five of the recovered soldiers who were teenagers, including one as young as 15.
“These 13 soldiers are not statistics,” Wise continued. “They lie before us not as an excerpt of history, but they are tangible and real. They represent the other 400 plus soldiers spread across this hallowed ground.”
The ground had been hollowed by patriot soldiers from Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, and the Carolinas under the command of Prussian Count Major General Johann de Kalb and British-born Virginia gentleman Horatio Gates clashing with British and Loyalist forces under General Charles Lord Cornwallis on August 16, 1780. 
The battle ended in a <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/camden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rout</a> of the Americans who suffered about 1,900 casualties, whereas the British only sustained 324. Included in the American casualties was <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/johann-de-kalb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">de Kalb</a>, who had been given a commission in the army by American diplomats in France eager to get support for American independence.
Prior to the battlefield ceremony, the soldiers were carried through the streets of Camden’s historic district by horse-drawn carriages to be given a joint Anglican-Presbyterian funeral ceremony at Bethesda Presbyterian Church.
<div id="attachment_545609" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-545609" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-545609 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_082540747-768x576.jpg" alt="Camden, SC. " width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_082540747-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_082540747-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_082540747-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_082540747-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />Credit: The Daily Wire.</div>
Escorted by a military band, the funeral procession passed by hundreds of locals who watched in silence. Joining the horse-drawn carriages were members of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR), decked out in full colonial soldier regalia.
Brooks Lyles, Jr., chairman of the SAR education outreach committee told The Daily Wire that members from all over the country, including Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi were present at the ceremonies. 
This remarkable event was organized by the Camden Burials Steering Committee, which was formed after the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/americas-first-veterans-discovery-of-remains-of-14-revolutionary-war-soldiers-announced-on-veterans-day" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discovery of the bodies</a> last year. The committee took great care, to ensure that the bodies were treated with respect and every detail was considered. 
For example, the <a href="https://www.scbattlegroundtrust.org/camden-coffin-craftsmen" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coffins holding</a> the bodies of the patriots were draped in American flags and were custom-built from longleaf wood in the style of an 18th-century coffin. Even the nails used in the coffins were hand-forged to be in accordance with the style of the time. 
<div id="attachment_545611" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-545611" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-545611 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_085626339_HDR-768x576.jpg" alt="Coffins at Camden. " width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_085626339_HDR-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_085626339_HDR-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_085626339_HDR-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_085626339_HDR-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />Credit: The Daily Wire.</div>
This attention to detail contrasted greatly with the state the 12 patriots were found in. Many were covered in only a foot of soil with no marker and in a mass grave. The patriots had been routed so badly they didn&#8217;t have time after the battle to attend to the dead. It is believed they were cut down during the retreat by the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/people/banastre-tarleton.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">infamous</a> “Bloody Ban” Banastre Tarleton and his cavalry forces. 
The remains, some of which contained evidence of British bullets and bayonets, were identified by their pewter buttons used by the patriot soldiers. 
The funeral service was conducted very similar to a service from the time of the battle. As the bodies of the soldiers were moved from the carriages to in front of the church, the tunes to famous hymns like “Amazing Grace,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” and “Be Thou My Vision” played as the clergy read Bible passages about Jesus being the resurrection and the life.
During the funeral, the patriot soldiers were once again reunited with de Kalb, whose grave is located in front of the historic church. His grave marker describes the Prussian as, “covered in wounds while gallantly performing deeds of valor in rallying the friends and opposing the enemies of his adopted country.”
After the service, which featured a number of Bible readings, the soldiers were honored by an F-16 flyover before the bodies were escorted away.
Dan Goforth, whose ancestor fought for the patriots at the battle of King’s Mountain, told The Daily Wire he was there with his son to observe the ceremonies, something he called a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Hours after the funeral service, another ceremony was held on the battlefield featuring speeches from Governor Henry McMaster (R-SC), South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust President Douglas Bostick, a representative from the British consulate in Atlanta, and others.
This ceremony was held out among the pines on the battlefield, where a stage had been set up not far from where de Kalb had fallen. The coffins holding the remains of the 12 patriots and the coffin with the Scottish Highlander were placed in front of a stage before the helicopters flew over.
One attendee, Bill, told The Daily Wire he had over 40 relatives who had fought in America’s war for independence. He said he was amazed by the hardships that America’s founding generation went through, especially compared to what people complain about today.
Even though the names of the fallen remain unknown, the scene at both ceremonies was solemn and emotional.
“When these coffins were coming in for a minute there, I didn’t know whether to cry or pray,” McMaster said, summing up many people’s emotions as the coffins were laid to rest just feet from where many of the remains had been discovered.
<div id="attachment_545615" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-545615" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-545615 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_141816036-768x576.jpg" alt="Camden Battlefield. " width="768" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_141816036-768x576.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_141816036-300x225.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_141816036-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/05/IMG_20230422_141816036-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" />Credit: The Daily Wire.</div>
“The more I learn about our nation&#8217;s history, the more proud I am of South Carolina’s dramatic role in it. These ceremonies remind and instruct us of the virtually insurmountable challenges and burdens our people faced and overcame in securing their liberty and ours,” McMaster added.
The <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/camden">clash at Camden</a> was precipitated by Gates, recently given command of the Southern Department, moving the Southern Department to take a British fort near Camden that he believed to be weakly fortified. Gates&#8217; forces consisted of poorly trained, inexperienced militia men and more experienced units from Delaware and Maryland under de Kalb.
Cornwallis, who was in command of British forces in the South, learned of Gates’s movement and took his army north to combat the patriots. The two armies ended up meeting up about seven miles outside of Camden on the night of August 15 and briefly skirmished, before both retreated until morning to resume fighting.
The battle on August 16 was an utter disaster for the patriots. The more experienced Redcoats made quick work of the green troops.
While the militia men quickly fled, troops from Maryland and Delaware fought longer, but they too were soon overwhelmed, with de Kalb suffering multiple wounds that proved to be mortal.
After the battle, the cause of American independence appeared  severely weakened. The battle had effectively destroyed the colonist’s whole southern army. For a moment, it appeared to be a turning point in the war,  but only briefly as it initiated important changes.
Gates, who would be widely ridiculed for his wild retreat from Camden would be replaced by the more competent Virginian Nathaniel Greene, also known as “the savior of the South,” who would orchestrate the great patriot victory at Cowpens soon after the disaster at Camden, which followed on the heels of a great patriot victory at King’s Mountain.
While most of the fallen at Camden never received a proper burial or recognition for the price they paid for America’s independence, 12 young soldiers finally received the honor they deserved as hundreds turned up to say thank you one week in Camden.

IMG_20230422_145215496_HDR

12 Patriot Soldiers Given Proper Funeral 243 Years After Revolutionary Battle Of Camden, ‘Boys Only In Age’

12 Patriot Soldiers Given Proper Funeral 243 Years After Revolutionary Battle Of Camden, 'Boys Only In Age'

American Revolution

South Carolina

Eighth graders had the lowest U.S. history scores on record in 2022 and among the lowest civics scores, the Department of Education revealed this week.
The Education Department on Wednesday released the first federal history and civics testing data since before the COVID pandemic. The data shows that the last few years have erased the progress made since the 1990s on eighth grade students&#8217; knowledge of history and civics.
Only about 13% of eighth graders met proficiency <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/ushistory/2022/">standards</a> for U.S. history last year, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also called the Nation’s Report Card. Proficient means students could explain major themes, periods, events, people, ideas, and turning points in the nation&#8217;s history. Only 1% of students who took the test were rated as advanced in U.S. history.
Only about <a href="https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/highlights/civics/2022/">one-fifth</a> of students were proficient or better in civics.
In addition, last year more students also performed below &#8220;basic&#8221; levels in both U.S. history and civics, the data shows. Four in ten eighth graders scored below basic in history, while about 31% scored below basic in civics. Eighth graders got an average history score of 258 out of 500, five points lower than 2018. They scored an average civics score of 150 out of 300, three points lower than 2018.
Students who were already struggling saw their scores sink significantly, while students who were excelling before the pandemic continued to do well for the most part.
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History and civics were the two most dismal subjects as far as how many students were proficient, the Education Department data showed. History and civics scores are “woefully low in comparison to other subjects,” Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics told reporters Tuesday.
“These data are a national concern. The health of our democracy depends on informed and engaged citizens,” Carr said.
Math and reading scores have also suffered over the pandemic, the Education Department revealed last year. Math scores <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/math-scores-dropped-in-every-state-during-pandemic-report-card-shows-11666584062?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plummeted</a> among fourth and eighth graders in almost every state, the Education Department reported back in October. Reading scores have also <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-fourth-graders-cant-read-one-phoenix-school-has-a-new-way-to-fight-pandemic-learning-loss-11633818431?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sunk</a> across the country, erasing the last three decades of progress.
Eighth graders scored an average 274 out of 500 in math, eight points lower than 2018. Their average reading score was 260 out of 500, down three points from 2018.
Many students returned to classrooms last year reading at the same level as when the pandemic started, putting them two grade levels behind. A January study <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/30/health/covid-learning-loss-study-wellness/index.html">suggested</a> that students lost about 35% of a normal school year&#8217;s worth of learning, starting when remote learning began.
Learning loss caused by many months of remote learning during the pandemic spurred parents across the country to demand schools return to in-person learning, especially after data showed that children were low-risk for serious cases of COVID.
Some parents even <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meet-the-moms-and-dads-taking-over-school-boards-across-the-country" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ran for school board</a> positions and won, hoping to stop the learning loss in their district.
In Florida, mom and new board member Stephanie Meyer said failing grades and student behavioral problems made her unwilling to send her own children to the same schools she once attended.
In Michigan, Tom Payne, a grandfather and new school board president, dubbed the district’s academic performance before he was elected “mediocre at best.”

Assorted Location Shoots

Eighth Graders Had Record Low U.S. History, Civics Scores In 2022

Children

COVID

Pandemic

Remote Learning

America’s 12th president, Zachary Taylor, was a walking contradiction who came into power at a pivotal moment in American history, and his untimely demise may have cost the US a chance to avoid its devastating civil war.
A career military man, Taylor had little interest in politics and had never voted in a presidential election until he became a candidate himself in 1848. The son of a veteran of America’s Revolutionary War, Taylor joined the army in 1808 and served in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War(1835) and the 2nd Seminole War(1837), rising to the rank of Brigadier General, although the defining moments of his career would occur during the Mexican-American War.
After the United States annexed Texas in 1845, it inherited the problem of a disputed border with Mexico — the US also had designs on the sparsely populated Mexican territory in what was now the American southwest. In 1846, President James K. Polk, who ran for office on a promise of “Manifest Destiny” sent Taylor and his men into the disputed land between the Rio Grande and Nueces River to extract territorial concessions from the Mexican government.
Mexico responded by shooting at Taylor’s men, killing 11 and triggering the Mexican-American War.
The war went disastrously for Mexico, and Taylor distinguished himself by winning a string of battles at Palo Alto, Buena Vista and Monterrey. By early 1848, Mexico surrendered and ceded roughly half of its territory to the United States.
“No soldier could face either danger or responsibility more calmly than he,” Ulysses S. Grant, who served under Zachary during the Mexican-American war, said of his former commander. “ He was known to every soldier in his army, and respected by all.”
The war created several new political realities: the careful balance of power between slave states and free states was called into question by the acquisition of so much new territory, and Zachary Taylor became a national hero. 
<div class="image"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-536779 aligncenter" src="https://dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-24-at-6.59.02-PM-300x169.png" alt="" width="440" height="248" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-24-at-6.59.02-PM-300x169.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-24-at-6.59.02-PM-1021x576.png 1021w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-24-at-6.59.02-PM-768x433.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-24-at-6.59.02-PM-1536x867.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/04/Screen-Shot-2023-04-24-at-6.59.02-PM-2048x1156.png 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 440px) 100vw, 440px" /></div>
“The political balance stood precariously at 15 free states and 15 slave states,” Joseph Fornieri, Professor of Political Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology explained. “Any additional states would tip the balance one way or the other… If anyone was in a position to resolve it, Taylor seemed to be that man.”
President Polk, a Democrat, declined to seek reelection despite his own wide popularity due to failing health and a previous campaign promise to only serve a single term. The Whigs, who had seen great electoral success with war hero William Henry Harrison in 1840 and saw a Taylor presidential ticket as an ideal means of replicating that success, and courted him as their nominee. Taylor, himself not a particularly strong partisan of any kind, agreed.
Taylor was born in Virginia and was a wealthy landowner who controlled several plantations and over 300 slaves — he also opposed to slavery’s expansion into America’s newly acquired territories and was a firm supporter of the Union. During his presidency, he went so far as to threaten to hang potential secessionists.
Taylor would ultimately die 16 months into his first term &#8211; the precise cause is disputed but the historical consensus is that the cause was some sort of stomach infection, and none of the sources suggest any kind of foul play. Nevertheless, he was unable to forge any meaningful compromise, and his successor, Millard Fillmore, would oversee the Compromise of 1850, which was so loathed that it largely set into motion the series of events that would a cataclysmic Civil War that would kill more than 600,000 Americans to finally put an end to the abominable institution of slavery.
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Zachary Taylor: The Man Who Might Have Prevented the Civil War" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9-nGyk0v5mE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
&nbsp;

Screen Shot 2023-04-24 at 6.40.47 PM

WATCH: Zachary Taylor, The Man Who Might Have Prevented The Civil War

American Civil War

Well, America might be going to hell in a handbasket (<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/manhattan-grand-jury-indicts-trump-in-connection-with-stormy-daniels-payments" target="_blank" rel="noopener">see: indictment of President Donald Trump)</a> but at least Opening Day in the MLB is here. Unlike other professional sports leagues, it appears there&#8217;s still some ounce of patriotism that can be found in America&#8217;s pastime — so much so that St. Louis pitcher Adam Wainwright sang the Star-Spangled banner.
Introduced as an &#8220;up and coming St. Louis artist,&#8221; Wainwright belted out the National Anthem prior to the team&#8217;s home opener against the Toronto Blue Jays. Here&#8217;s Wainwright, who is known as &#8220;Uncle Charlie,&#8221; performing the tune:
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Man I wish this guy was a Brave! <a href="https://t.co/nr5HV6tefI">pic.twitter.com/nr5HV6tefI</a>
&mdash; David Cone (@davidadamcone) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidadamcone/status/1641565298028322816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2023</a></blockquote>
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When Wainwright isn&#8217;t playing baseball, he is singing country music and performs to help raise money for his non-profit,  &#8220;<a href="https://bigleagueimpact.org/about/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Big League Impact</a>.&#8221;
The two-time World Series Champion has announced that this year will be his last in the MLB. He is also a three-time All-Star,  a two-time Gold Glover, a Silver Slugger, and the 2020 Roberto Clemente Award winner.
Wainwright was a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 and endorsed his club&#8217;s decision to wear BLM tee shirts while citing his Christian faith, but was tolerant of others around the league who opted not to partake in the BLM protest.
For example, San Francisco Giants pitcher Sam Coonrod said that felt as a Christian, he only knelt before the Lord. When asked about his response to Coonrod&#8217;s statement, Wainwright gave a lengthy answer, but said he had &#8220;no problem with it.&#8221;
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Here was Wainwright’s response when I asked about Giants pitcher Sam Coonrod, who said he felt as a Christian, he was unable to kneel before anyone but the Lord. <a href="https://t.co/XlIwKiRKKN">pic.twitter.com/XlIwKiRKKN</a>
&mdash; Jeff Jones (@jmjones) <a href="https://twitter.com/jmjones/status/1286805936984723456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
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One may not agree with Wainwright&#8217;s stance towards BLM, but at least he tolerates those who disagree with him and loves the National Anthem enough to sing it. You can&#8217;t say that for many, perhaps most, supporters of the BLM movement.
Wainwright is <a href="https://www.fantasypros.com/mlb/schedule/adam-wainwright.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">expected to make his first start</a> in the 2023 season next Thursday, April 7, against the Cincinnati Reds. At press time, the Cardinals and Blue Jays were tied 6-6 in the bottom of the seventh.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

ST. LOUIS, MO – MARCH 30: Adam Wainwright #50 of the St. Louis Cardinals sings the national anthem prior to the game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on Thursday, March 30, 2023 in St. Louis, Missouri.

WATCH: St. Louis Pitcher Sings National Anthem On Opening Day

America

Baseball

Major League Baseball

National Anthem

Sports

St. Louis

St. Louis Cardinals

A schooner barge that sank with its lifeboat still attached in Lake Huron 128 years ago has been discovered, the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary <a href="https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/mar23/ironton-discovery.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> Wednesday.
The Ironton, a 772-ton ship measuring 191 feet long, collided with a wooden freighter and sank to the bottom of the third-largest Great Lake on September 26, 1894. On board the ship were seven crew members who fled to the lifeboat. In all the action, however, the line connecting the lifeboat to the Ironton was never untied. Two of the crew members survived the shipwreck.
“Archaeologists study things to learn about the past,” Jeff Gray, superintendent of the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary <a href="https://apnews.com/article/great-lakes-shipwreck-discovery-ironton-91f6db8e3c42d37b2f8ade7b4df0a4bb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> the Associated Press. “But it’s not really things that we’re studying; it’s people. And that lifeboat &#8230; really connects you to the site and reminds you of how powerful the lakes are and what it must have been like to work on them and lose people on them.”
The ship was discovered in 2019 by teams from the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and Ocean Exploration Trust, but the announcement of the discovery was delayed until Wednesday to give researchers the opportunity to further investigate the site and confirm it was the Ironton.
The Ironton was being towed along with the schooner Moonlight by the Charles J. Kershaw, a steam-powered ship. Steam-powered ships towing schooners was common at that time, much like a train engine pulling freight cars, the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/great-lakes-shipwreck-discovery-ironton-91f6db8e3c42d37b2f8ade7b4df0a4bb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notes</a>. The ships departed Ashtabula, Ohio, on Lake Erie and were on their way to Marquette, Michigan on Lake Superior.
On September 26, 1894, at 12:30 a.m. on Lake Huron, the engine of the Kershaw failed, prompting sailors on the schooners to disconnect their towlines to avoid entanglement and collision, the National Marine Sanctuaries press release says. The ships <a href="https://apnews.com/article/great-lakes-shipwreck-discovery-ironton-91f6db8e3c42d37b2f8ade7b4df0a4bb" target="_blank" rel="noopener">drifted</a> apart and the Ironton was blown by the wind into the path of the Ohio steamer, which was heading south. The two ships collided head-on.
Both ships sustained damage and Ohio sank quickly, but not before all 16 crewmembers were able to board lifeboats for rescue. The Ironton drifted for at least an hour, according to the press release, and was not in view of any vessels who could save the crew. The seven-man crew of Ironton boarded the lifeboat but failed to untie the towlines. Only two men survived, one of whom told the story to the Duluth News Tribune a day after the incident.
“Then the Ironton sank, taking the yawl with her. As the painter was not untied, I sank underwater, and when I came up grabbed a sailor&#8217;s bag. Wooley was a short distance from me on a box. I swam to where he was,” William W. Parry, one of the survivors, shared with the paper.
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The press release states that the Ironton is “magnificently preserved” in the cold water of Lake Huron, hundreds of feet below the surface. The ship <a href="https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/news/mar23/ironton-discovery.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rests</a> upright with all three masts still standing, an anchor resting on the bow, and the lifeboat at the stern.
“It is hard to call it a shipwreck,” Gray <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/us/shipwreck-lake-huron.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The New York Times. “It’s a ship, sitting on the bottom, fully intact, and the lifeboat there, literally, is a moment frozen in time.”
The wreck site of Ohio was discovered in 2017 in 300 feet of water. Using its location, researchers employed autonomous surface vehicles and the conditions the night of Ironton’s sinking to map the search area. Through the use of sonar imaging, they were finally able to locate the ship, later confirming it was the Ironton.
The Thunder Bay National Marine sanctuary plans on adding a deep-water mooring buoy to mark the site of the wreck, allowing future divers to explore the well-preserved ship.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Long-lost shipwreck found in Lake Huron" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ahzvsmj5Ygg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Partially frozen lake in winter with pastel pink sky

‘Moment Frozen In Time’: Researchers Discover ‘Magnificently Preserved’ Lake Huron Shipwreck With Lifeboat Still Attached

Researchers Discover ‘Magnificently Preserved’ Lake Huron Shipwreck With Lifeboat Still Attached

Archaeology

Michigan

The interim director of the Smithsonian&#8217;s new American Women&#8217;s History Museum understands DNA — well at least in a metaphorical sense.
Interim director Lisa Sasaki told <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/legacy-media" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Times</a> that &#8220;transgender women&#8221; — AKA men pretending to be women — will be included in the potential new museum which has already received millions in funding because its &#8220;inclusivity&#8221; defines what the homage to American women is all about.
“We have a job to build a museum that’s going to serve the public for a very, very long time,” Sasaki <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/arts/smithsonian-museum-women-donors.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. “From the DNA of this museum, there has been a desire to be inclusive.”
Ironically, the DNA of the actual Americans found in this new museum does not matter to Sasaki. They simply have to &#8220;identify&#8221; as a woman while having made some contribution to American society deemed historic by the powers that be with this museum.
Nonetheless, the museum has yet to receive congressional approval, but it has raised $55 million in donations from benefactors such as Melinda Gates, Bill Gates&#8217; ex-wife, The Alice Walton Foundation, and more wealthy philanthropists.
The group already has online features up and running. It <a href="https://womenshistory.si.edu/herstory/activism/object/sylvia-rivera" target="_blank" rel="noopener">features</a> the likes of &#8220;Sylvia Rivera&#8221; who co-founded &#8220;the militant group and youth shelter STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries).&#8221; A <a href="https://womenshistory.si.edu/search/search_site?edan_q=phyllis%20schlafly" target="_blank" rel="noopener">search</a> for conservative icon and actual woman Phyllis Schlafly yields nothing.
Sasaki, for her part, has experience in the sphere of Smithsonian greatness.
Who could forget when she <a href="https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/smithsonian-aarp-and-kundiman-present-day-queer-life-asian-pacific-america" target="_blank" rel="noopener">launched the digital exhibition</a> “A Day in the Queer Life of Asian Pacific America” as executive director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center?  That online presentation featured the following illuminating presentations:
<ul>
<li>Queer Elders: a series of four video shorts of queer elders in San Francisco, Los Angeles and sites in the South and Midwest U.S., curated by archivist, photographer and filmmaker Mia Nakano</li>
<li>Queer Check-ins: a series of 12 video poem “check ins” by queer diasporic poets throughout the U.S. and beyond, curated by poet Franny Choi</li>
<li>Queer Youth: crowd-sourced photography and short video by queer youth</li>
<li>Queer Motion: crowd-sourced boomerangs exploring queer survival, heartbreak and joy set to motion</li>
<li>Queer Time: a long-form essay on queer experience of time by poet Rajiv Mohabir</li>
</ul>
When and where the museum&#8217;s final location will open remains to be determined. It might lose space on the National Mall to the new American Latino Museum, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/arts/smithsonian-museum-women-donors.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to The Times.
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The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Smithsonian, Transgender Flag

Men Pretending To Be Women Will Be Included In Smithsonian’s New ‘American Women’s History Museum’

Men Pretending To Be Women Will Be Included In Smithsonian's New 'American Women's History Museum'

Gender

LGBTQ

Smithsonian Museum

Transgender

Washington D.C.

Women's Rights

Radical black activist Angela Davis was visibly shocked when she learned that she was a descendant of the pilgrims on the Mayflower.
The self-avowed Marxist feminist and former black power activist in the 1970s appeared as a guest on the PBS series &#8220;<a href="https://www.pbs.org/video/and-still-i-rise/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Finding Your Roots</a>&#8221; Tuesday. During her interview, host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. revealed that she is a descendant of one of the original passengers on the Mayflower, William Brewster.
Gates shared a clip of the segment on Twitter. &#8220;Any idea what you&#8217;re looking at?&#8221; he asks. &#8220;That is a list of the passengers on the Mayflower.”
Davis is in complete astonishment. &#8220;No, I can&#8217;t believe this,&#8221; she says, laughing and throwing her hands up. &#8220;No, my ancestors did not come here on the Mayflower,&#8221; she laughs again.
&#8220;Your ancestors came here on the Mayflower,&#8221; Gates repeats. &#8220;You are descended from one of the 101 people who sailed on the Mayflower.&#8221;
&#8220;No. No, no, no, no,&#8221; she responds, still laughing in disbelief. Finally, she collects herself. &#8220;Oof. That&#8217;s a little bit too much to deal with right now,&#8221; she says.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“Do you know what you’re looking at? That is a list of the passengers on the Mayflower.” 
Our researchers discovered <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AngelaDavis?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AngelaDavis</a>’s ancestors traveled to the US on the Mayflower and here is her reaction. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FindingYourRoots?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FindingYourRoots</a> <a href="https://t.co/G2HhA9BSrT">pic.twitter.com/G2HhA9BSrT</a>
&mdash; Henry Louis Gates Jr (@HenryLouisGates) <a href="https://twitter.com/HenryLouisGates/status/1628210213236142080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2023</a></blockquote>
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According to the episode, Davis&#8217;s father, Frank Davis, was legally the son of Mollie Spencer and Edward Davis. But Edward Davis was not his biological father; Spencer and Davis separated before he was born. Instead, Frank Davis was the son of Mollie Spencer and another white man named Murphy Jones. Experts were able to map Davis&#8217;s family line through Jones all the way back to William Brewster, an original signer of the Mayflower Compact and a leader of the Plymouth Colony.
Also in the episode, Davis&#8217;s maternal grandfather was a white Alabama lawyer and state legislator named John Austin Darden. Through Darden, she is the descendant of a man named Stephen Darden, a drummer born in Virginia who served in the Revolutionary War. Darden then moved to Georgia, where he owned a farm and at least 6 slaves.
“I always imagined my ancestors as the people who were enslaved,” Davis said. &#8220;My mind and my heart are swirling with all of these contradictory emotions.&#8221;
Davis has been a radical race activist for more than the last half-century. She began her instruction in Marxism from the time she began studying at Brandeis University. She became a student of the radical left-wing philosopher Herbert Marcuse, and also studied the work of the Marxist Jean-Paul Sartre. A member of both the Communist Party USA and the Black Panther Party, she spoke in Communist Cuba, the Soviet Union, and East Germany. She has also had a long career in academia, beginning as a professor at UCLA in 1969 and has taught at San Francisco State, UC Santa Cruz, Rutgers University, and Syracuse University. She also ran for Vice President as a member of the Communist Party in 1980 and 1984.
Davis, 79, has continued her career promoting radical politics. In 2011, she spoke at Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in Philadelphia. She was an honorary co-chair of the first Women&#8217;s March in 2017. She has called for the abolition of prisons, and in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-radical-professor-calls-abolition-police-jeffrey-cawood" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2017</a> op-ed, she called for the abolition of the police &#8220;in the age of Trump.&#8221; She is also a family friend of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jussie-smollett-was-raised-in-the-orbit-of-the-black-panthers-as-his-mom-was-best-friends-with-radical-communists" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jussie Smollett</a>. Her works on race and gender have also been featured in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/princeton-now-offers-a-class-about-black-lives-matter-that-includes-readings-from-an-avowed-marxist" target="_blank" rel="noopener">college courses</a>, and lately, in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/revised-version-of-ap-african-american-studies-course-tones-down-wokeness-desantis-admin-reviewing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AP African-American Studies</a> class that was banned by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis this year.

Ibram X. Kendi

‘No, No, No, No’: Radical Black Activist Angela Davis Learns She Is Descended From A Mayflower Passenger

'No, No, No, No': Radical Black Activist Angela Davis Learns She Is Descended From A Mayflower Passenger

Activists

Angela Davis

General

Race

If you&#8217;ve paid any attention to the immigration debate over the last twenty years, then you know that the Left thinks the word &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/tom-brokaw-blasted-saying-hispanics-should-work-paul-bois" target="_blank" rel="noopener">assimilation</a>&#8221; is a dirty word. Rather than expecting new citizens to adopt America&#8217;s traditions and customs, while bringing the best from their old country, liberals claim they want a multicultural society — not a melting pot.
Yet it is rather apparent that isn&#8217;t quite true — what they want is to abolish America&#8217;s founding ideals, and instead replace them with radical gender ideology, anti-Judeo-Christian values, and a collectivist society. Individual thinking is not allowed under these new <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-american-values-biden-admin-funding-ecuadorian-drag-shows-for-diversity-and-inclusion-efforts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American values</a>. Get in line or get out is the message.
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/canadian-broadcaster-viciously-attacks-religious-people-after-nhl-player-wont-join-pride-night">reaction</a> to Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov&#8217;s refusal to wear a rainbow-themed jersey at NHL &#8220;pride night&#8221; on Tuesday proved that&#8217;s the Left&#8217;s goal.
Provorov, a practicing Russian Orthodox Christian, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/true-to-myself-and-my-religion-nhl-player-ivan-provorov-refuses-to-participate-in-teams-pride-night-festivities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">chose not to wear the jersey</a> due to his personal beliefs. In turn, the outrage over a man practicing his religion was apoplectic. Demands were imminent that he either don the attire or go back to Russia.
&#8220;Ivan Provorov can get on a plane any day he wants, and go back to place a where he feels more comfortable, take less money, and get on with his life that way, &#8221; NHL Network&#8217;s E.J. Hradek barked this week.
Hradek wasn&#8217;t done. The senior reporter demanded that Provorov adopt the new American values found in the LGBTQ creed.
&#8220;And he&#8217;s been in North America for a long time. He played in the Western hockey league, he&#8217;s now been in Philadelphia for many years,&#8221; he lectured. &#8220;If it&#8217;s that much of a problem for him to, maybe, assimilate into his group of teammates, and community, and here in this country — that&#8217;s okay. Listen you can feel any way you want, but the beauty is if it bothers you that much there&#8217;s always a chance for you to leave, maybe go back where you feel more comfortable.&#8221;
Of course, in doing so, Hradek was telling all Americans that if they don&#8217;t believe in radical gender ideology, they don&#8217;t belong here.
So, no it isn&#8217;t okay in Hradek&#8217;s mind if people disagree on that issue. They must pledge fealty to wokeness, or deport themselves.
Provorov, who is Russian but has lived in the U.S. for over a decade,  should also go fight in the war in Ukraine, Hradek implied.
&#8220;I understand there&#8217;s a conflict of sorts going on over there, maybe get involved,&#8221; he added.
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NHL analyst says on the NHL Network! that if Philly Flyers Provorov doesn’t want to wear a pro-LBGTQ uniform he should leave America, go back to Russia, and fight in the war against Ukraine. The tolerant left! Holy shit: <a href="https://t.co/wWLFBy2stC">pic.twitter.com/wWLFBy2stC</a>
&mdash; Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1615866427797389313?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Hradek wasn&#8217;t alone. Another reporter wanted the Flyers organization to be fined a million dollars for Provorov&#8217;s wrong-think — among other consequences:
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UPDATE: Journalists are now crying on air bc Provorov wouldn’t wear a Pride jersey <a href="https://t.co/GFfCYQsRYb">pic.twitter.com/GFfCYQsRYb</a>
&mdash; Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) <a href="https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1615723464429801484?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2023</a></blockquote>
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At this point, you might need a refresher as to what the hockey star said about &#8220;pride night.&#8221;
“I respect everybody and I respect everybody’s choices,” Provorov stated. “My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion.”
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Flyers head coach John Tortorella defended Provy and refused to bench him tonight:
“He’s being true to himself.” <a href="https://t.co/ZPbbKMqFi1">pic.twitter.com/ZPbbKMqFi1</a>
&mdash; Greg Price (@greg_price11) <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1615572273133457408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2023</a></blockquote>
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That&#8217;s it. For that, the Left wants him to leave the country.
So, no, liberals don&#8217;t want a society that respects all religions and beliefs — they want complete submission to the &#8220;New American values.&#8221; As previously discussed, for the Woke in charge, it is no longer enough to advance the idea that all men are created equal. Loyal American citizens now must push leftist social norms into every crevice of culture — including Russian hockey players. The Left says you must accept the idea that sex-change surgeries, gender confusion, and things that go against your religion should be celebrated.
Hockey reporters aren&#8217;t alone in pushing that agenda. America&#8217;s State Department is funding drag shows abroad while defending the programs are part of the goal to promote the &#8220;U.S. values of diversity and the inclusion of LGBTQI+ communities.&#8221;
Of course, the ironic thing is that the Left is unwittingly correct in one regard: The best way for the U.S. to function is to abide by the nation&#8217;s motto &#8220;E Pluribus Unum,&#8221; or out of many one. Having competing cultures within one country, with different ideals and principles and governance and more, ends in turmoil every time.
The only problem is that they don&#8217;t want a society based on the U.S.&#8217;s historical notion of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/original-trump-backer-michael-savage-desantis-is-the-future-this-is-about-a-nation-not-about-any-man" target="_blank" rel="noopener">borders, language, and culture</a> — they want it based on an ever-changing woke ideology. And unlike the old American values, they don&#8217;t tolerate anybody who dissents.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Pride Night NHL

Turns Out, The Left Loves Assimilation. NHL Pride Night Proves It.

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The ongoing battle for the office of Speaker of the House crossed another historical milestone today as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/kevin-mccarthy">Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy</a> came up short once again in the 11th round. The election for speaker has not gone past 1 ballot in the last 100 years, and ballots have not reached into double digits since the Civil War.
Despite the political melodrama, contested elections for speaker are <a href="https://history.house.gov/People/Office/Speakers-Multiple-Ballots/">not unprecedented</a> in American history — fully ⅓ of the first 30 Congresses did not select their Speaker of the House on the first ballot, although the majority of these contests were settled in the 2nd or 3rd round. Only four lasted into the double digits, and only two took more ballots than the election of 2023. In 1819, the Speaker was decided on the 22nd ballot, and in 1821, the contest was decided in the 12th round.
<div id="attachment_485205" style="width: 545px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-485205" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-485205" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/US-House-Speaker-Elections-300x248.png" alt="" width="535" height="442" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/US-House-Speaker-Elections-300x248.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/US-House-Speaker-Elections-697x576.png 697w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/US-House-Speaker-Elections-768x635.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2023/01/US-House-Speaker-Elections.png 1324w" sizes="(max-width: 535px) 100vw, 535px" />Courtesy of History.house.gov</div>
In this period of American history, the parties were less ideological and more coalitions of various interests, and party apparatuses were by necessity more decentralized, so some division and last minute leadership struggles were much more likely — battles within our early parties for control of the gavel were not earth shattering events.
Tensions in Congress became substantially higher in the lead up to the Civil War, as regional divisions became more and more inflamed and recriminations over the issue of slavery became more intense. The antebellum Whig Party, which had been a dominant force in American politics for decades, was in the process of fracturing as strong anti-slavery elements of the party were dissatisfied with its various compromises with the slave owning south — its disparate descendants (The American Party, the Opposition Party, the Free Soil Party, the Know Nothing Party, etc) would struggle for dominance over the next decade until the Republican Party emerged victorious.
Many of these leadership struggles took place in the House, where the much more populous free states of the North had greater representation.
Grudge match Speaker elections are something of a Republican Party tradition.
Between 1849 to 1860, half of all Congresses failed to elect a Speaker on the first ballot.
In 1849, the Democrats had won a plurality of 113 seats in the 31st Congress, but fallen short of the 117 majority threshold. The Whigs had won 107, but their breakaway factions in the Free Soil and Know Nothing (so named because when their supporters were asked questions about their policies, they would often respond “I know nothing”) had won 10 seats, and if the anti-Democratic forces could coalesce, they would have been able to wrest control of the gavel away from the Democrats.
Instead, both parties saw defections in a bitter, drawn-out election that lasted for over 19 days across 63 ballots. After 59 attempts, Congress agreed that if no majority could be reached in the next three ballots, the contest would be settled by a plurality rather than a majority vote (this has been floated by some as a possible solution to our current standoff).
However, even with the threat of a Democratic victory, the Whigs and their breakaways were unable to coalesce, and Democrat Howell Cobb of Georgia ultimately prevailed with 102 votes — the three leading anti-Democrat candidates had a combined count of 111.
The 34th Congress was even more chaotic. In the aftermath of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which had scrapped the Missouri Compromise to allow slavery north of the Mason-Dixon Line, the Whig Party had completely imploded. Control of the House was split between the American (Know Nothing), Opposition (a fusion of Republicans, Free Soilers, and a few intransigent Whigs), and Democratic Parties, none of whom had anything close to a majority. Once again, the combined anti-Democratic coalition did have a majority, this time an overwhelming one, but with no unified structure, they struggled to rally behind a leader.
Six members of the Opposition bloc and three members of the American bloc were nominated for Speaker on the first ballot, alongside two Democratic candidates. The knock-down, drag-out slugfest for the Speaker’s gavel would last for a grueling two months, and 135 candidates for the office received votes over the course of 133 rounds.
“This is not a mere contest as to a Speaker of the House; it is but an incident in a long and arduous struggle which is to determine whether slavery will be the pole star of our National career,” Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune, <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JqmW7l6z8XDGtHj009ZtP0_LtvFcpxJDuFVTp0rRKus/edit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> at the time.
Once again, spirits flagged and the Congress consented to a plurality vote once it was clear that no majority could be reached. But, while a Democrat had won a sizable plurality in the first round, the anti-slavery factions were able to rally around the Know Nothing Congressman Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts as a compromise candidate. Banks had only won 21 votes on the first ballot, but was able to cobble together 103 in the final round, edging out Democrat William Aiken Jr (SC) by three votes.
The issue of slavery continued to divide the nation and opposition to it became the loadstar of the inchoate Republican Party. The Grand Old Party (which is actually several decades younger than the Democratic Party) was founded in 1854, but had emerged as the center of Democratic opposition until around 1856, when it nominated its first Presidential Candidate, John C. Fremont — the aforementioned Speaker of the House, Nathaniel Banks, would later join the Republicans.
By 1859, the Republicans had won a plurality in the 36th Congress, but not a majority, so once again there was a drawn out battle for control of the gavel that lasted for roughly eight weeks and 44 ballots, well into 1860. Freshman Congressman William Penington (NJ), who was not nominated in the <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/ll/llcg/051/0000/00800002.tif" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first round</a> and received only his own vote, eventually emerged as the winner and the first Republican to ever have been elected Speaker, but the bitterness over the struggle and the alienation of Southern Democrats was so intense that some historians believe it was a contributing factor toward the secession of many Southern States two years later.
This was the last time a Speaker battle lasted for more than nine rounds.
By contrast, the most recent contested speaker election, a satisfying century before our own, was fairly tame — Republicans won a clear majority, but 22 of the party’s most progressive members refused to back the front runner, the incumbent Frederick H. Gillet (MA), for the first eight ballots, until they were granted several concessions by leadership, including a seat on the House rules committee and a pledge that several rule changes would be considered.
History may not repeat, exactly, but it certainly rhymes.
McCarthy is in a weaker position than Gillet, as he is not the incumbent Speaker, but the situation he’s facing is far closer to 1923 than 1860 or 1849. As divided as the Republican Party is, it is at least a single, coherent party, and as <a href="https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/america-more-divided-than-at-any-time-since-civil-war" target="_blank" rel="noopener">polarized</a> as we are, this battle is unlikely to lead us into another Civil War.
Fingers crossed.

1793-2023: An Overview Of Contested Speaker Elections

Civil War

Congress

House Speaker

Republican Party

A host of historic artifacts, including firearms linked to two presidents, are being sold this weekend, giving bidders the rare opportunity to own the gun of a former president.
The Illinois-based Rock Island Auction Company (RIA) is auctioning off a trove of historic guns, swords, and other items this weekend, including a factory-engraved Smith &amp; Wesson Model No. 3 single-action <a href="https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/87/84" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revolver</a> that belonged to former President Theodore Roosevelt.
“Any time you can have a Teddy Roosevelt item, he’s such a man of his times, it’s very exciting,” Joel Kolander, interactive production manager for RIA, told The Daily Wire. “I’ve been working for Rock Island Auction Company for ten years, I can count on one hand the amount of presidential-tied items that we have had.”
The revolver, which could go for up to $1.4 million or more, was shipped to Roosevelt just before he left the U.S. in 1898 to fight in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt did not end up using the gun during the war, instead carrying one that had been salvaged from the USS Maine. The Maine had exploded under mysterious circumstances, precipitating the war with Spain.
“It’s [in] remarkable condition,” Kolander said, “It’s almost fortunate that this revolver did not go off to war because there’s no way that it would have survived in the condition that it did.” The gun, which has been held in a private collection, was factory engraved by the Youngs, a family known at the time for their skill at engraving.
<div id="attachment_475288" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-475288" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-475288" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/image1-300x227.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="227" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/12/image1-300x227.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/12/image1.jpeg 320w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Photo Courtesy of the Rock Island Auction Company.</div>
The auction company sold a gold hunting knife belonging to Roosevelt in 2016 for over $400,000. Kolander said one reason Roosevelt is still so popular is because he embodies American values like rugged individualism.
“For us as Americans or anyone who appreciates some of those traditional American values, Teddy Roosevelt is absolutely someone that’s going to appeal to them,” he said.
Another presidential-linked item at the auction is a <a href="https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/87/1242" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Burnside Carbine</a> that former President Abraham Lincoln presented in 1862 to John J. Crittenden, an influential Kentucky statesman who worked to keep Kentucky in the Union during the Civil War.
The gun, which had been kept by the descendants of Crittenden until 1992, is expected to go for between $100,000 and $300,000.
Other items available at the auction <a href="https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/87/1265" target="_blank" rel="noopener">include</a> the battle and dress swords of Brigadier General John W. M. Appleton, who was one of the white officers leading the 54th Massachusetts, the second African-American regiment during the Civil War. A <a href="https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/87/1238/general-sickles-excelsior-brigade-sword" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sword</a> belonging to Medal of Honor recipient and Gettysburg hero General Dan Sickles, expected to go for between $30,000 and $50,000, can also be purchased.

Digitally restored vector artwork of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders at the top of the hill which they captured, Battle of San Juan. Circa 1898.

Rare Opportunity: President And Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt’s Revolver Goes Up For Auction

Rare Opportunity: President And Rough Rider Teddy Roosevelt's Revolver Goes Up For Auction

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Theodore Roosevelt

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