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Joe Wolverton

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President Without A Party

A review of President without a Party: The Life of John Tyler (LSU Press, 2020) by Christopher Leahy “His Accidency.” That’s the nickname given to John Tyler, earned, as it were, because of the way he became vice-president (no one else wanted the job) and president (William Henry Harrison died after just over a month in office). Fair enough. Those…
Joe Wolverton
February 1, 2021
Review Posts

Grant a Better General Than Lee? No.

A review of Grant and Lee: Victorious American and Vanquished Virginian (Regnery History, 2012) by Edward Bonekemper, III. I don’t think a person of sound mind and impartial understanding of the so-called Civil War could get past the second paragraph of the introduction of Edward H. Bonekemper III’s book Grant and Lee: Victorious American and Vanquished Virginian without realizing that…
Joe Wolverton
April 14, 2020
Blog

Make America States Again

I am honored to speak at the graduation from high school of these young men and women who were once my students and who are now my friends. We’ve grown so close, in fact, I’ve decided to graduate with them! Over the last few weeks, as the day of my departure grew near, many of these dear friends have thanked…
Joe Wolverton
June 21, 2019
Blog

A Little Whiskey Rebellion

“I plainly perceive that the time will come when a shirt shall not be washed without an excise.”— Representative James Jackson of Georgia, speech against the Whiskey Tax delivered on January 5, 1791 in the House of Representatives As with so many other episodes in early American history, the true story of the so-called Whiskey Rebellion has been purposefully scrubbed…
Joe Wolverton
February 22, 2019
Review Posts

Republicans Knew Where Their Brot Was Buttered In 1860

A Review of The Election of 1860: “A Campaign Fraught with Consequences” by Michael F. Holt (University Press of Kansas, 2017). Chapter One of Michael F. Holt’s contribution to the corpulent body of work covering the election of 1860 is called “Republican Storm Rising” and it was political perfect storm that blew Abraham Lincoln into the White House. One of,…
Joe Wolverton
September 25, 2018
Blog

First Amendment Establishment

The Phoenix, Arizona city council has been forced by self-declared “Satanists” to cease opening its meetings with prayer. The Arizona Republic reports the details of the events leading to this decision: “Followers of the Satanic Temple, a group promoting religious agnosticism, had been scheduled to give the prayer at the council's Feb. 17 meeting. News of the planned Satanic invocation…
Joe Wolverton
June 8, 2018
Review Posts

Knights of the Golden Circle

A review of Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire, Southern Secession, Civil War by David C. Keehn (LSU, 2013). “Maybe,” “Likely,” “It seems that.” Those are hardly the words of an author certain of the truth of his thesis, but these are indeed the words David C. Keehn uses in his book, Knights of the Golden Circle: Secret Empire,…
Joe Wolverton
April 24, 2018
Blog

Spencer Roane

“It has been our happiness to believe, that in the partition of powers between the general and State governments, the former possessed only such as were expressly granted, or passed therewith as necessary incidents, while all the residuary powers were reserved by the latter.” Spencer Roane Had one-time friends John Adams and Thomas Jefferson not had such a high-profile and…
Joe Wolverton
February 26, 2018
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The Midnight Ride that Saved Jefferson and Henry

Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of — Jack Jouett? Jouett’s mission, like that of his more famous fellow horseman, was to warn American patriots of the approaching attack by British regulars. While most people have heard of Paul Revere and his ride, forever memoralized by the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, there are few who…
Joe Wolverton
January 25, 2018
Blog

Remembering St. George Tucker

Washington, Adams, Madison, Jefferson, Franklin. All of these Founding Fathers are well known and need no first names. Tucker, however, that’s a surname of a member of the Founding Generation that isn’t familiar at all and definitely needs a first name and what a first name it is: St. George! St. George Tucker is a man whose name has been…
Joe Wolverton
January 12, 2018
Review Posts

James Madison: Son of Virginia

A Review  James Madison: A Son of Virginia and a Founder of the Nation by Jeff Broadwater (University of North Carolina Press, 2012). Speaking at the celebration of the completion of the restoration of Montpelier, Chief Justice John Roberts said, “Montpelier restored is certainly beautiful but is in no sense the most fitting memorial to James Madison. If you’re looking…
Joe Wolverton
November 14, 2017
Blog

Madisonian Liberal

In 2015, Todd Horwitz posted an article on on the Ron Paul-sponsored website Voices of Liberty aimed at restoring the definition of liberal. Horwitz explained: “Today’s liberals are not liberal at all. They are elitists, communists, and socialists that believe that they should dictate how people live. The true liberals are conservatives that try to restore the country to the…
Joe Wolverton
September 14, 2017
Blog

Madisonian Nullification

This article will restore necessary context to the word "nullification” as used by James Madison in an 1834 letter called “Notes on Nullification.” First, we have to put Madison’s role in the formulation of the concept of nullification into some context of its own. As indispensable as he was to the development of our Constitution, James Madison is not the…
Joe Wolverton
July 27, 2017