Category Archives: Freedom

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didnt pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on for them to do the same.

President Ronald Reagan must have had a premonition that someday his quote would be needed.

The movie Seven Days in May," although fictional, with a different plot, doesnt mean it cant happen in todays America.

Already one current retired general has forgotten the principles for the founding of this great nation and the same reasons so many have fought and died for these freedoms.

The movie has a great cast: Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and many other great actors.

The only thing that protects us today is our Constitution, freedom of the press, honest lawyers and judges and honest justices of the Supreme Court.

No other country in the world has these kinds of protections, but we have to be on our guard, night and day, or they could be lost.

Gerald Newman, retired U.S. Navy, Valparaiso

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Reagan was prophetic on freedom - nwitimes.com

In the old days of video streaming that is, not so long ago consumers could cut the cable cord and subscribe to one or two services, enjoying a vast array of movies and television programming at a rate far less than the monster cable bill.

Its not so simple anymore.

Disney, the juggernaut behind ESPN, Pixar, Marvel and the recent additions to the Star Wars franchise, shook the entertainment world this week with an announcement that it would remove many of its offerings from Netflix. The company said it would create a service or multiple services for its films and shows, and another for ESPN.

As a result, a Netflix user who enjoyed access to Disney content plus all of Netflixs other content on one site may have to turn to three or more sites to get it all. Its all in discussion, said Disney chief executive Bob Iger.

[Disney bidding Netflix goodbye as it ramps up its own streaming empire]

It is the most recent example of how the move toward streaming though consumers have been demanding it for years is proving to be a more fragmented experience than many have anticipated. Entertainment companies are now running services with increasingly narrow offerings, looking to hit consumers up for more subscription revenue wherever possible.

I worry that well be going down yet another rabbit hole where exclusivity will take over and Ill ultimately end up paying more for less, said Brett Hatten, a father of two toddlers from Chicago who already pays for six streaming services. I dont want to end up in a place where you have to subscribe to a bunch of different fiefdoms.

The shift is breaking down popular expectations in the entertainment world. For a half-century, for instance, viewers have expected to see shows on CBS broadcast free over the air on their TV. But this year, the network is launching highly anticipated shows such as the sequel to The Good Wife and a new Star Trek series only on its online service, marking yet another service people may need to subscribe to. CBS announced a separate sports streaming service this week.

CBS sees this as a way to court specific audiences. To succeed, you need a great core and content that only you have, Marc DeBevoise, the president of CBS Interactive, said of the networks streaming service, CBS All Access. These are not for a big, broad audience.

And the plethora of television options is changing consumer behaviors in still other ways, leading many viewers to hopscotch between services, subscribing to HBO for a few months to watch Game of Thrones, then moving to Showtime to take in The Affair, before joining yet another service for an eight-episode binge.

I happily subscribe to Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, which all have a wide selection of shows and movies. But when I consider other streaming services, the costs add up, said Diana Urban, a 30-year-old marketing manager and fiction author in Boston. She signs up for HBO Now during Game of Thrones season, when she also catches up on Veep and a few other shows. Paying $15 a month indefinitely for only four shows isnt worth it, she said.

Streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, which offers a video library along with its other features, such as free two-day shipping, took off in part because they promised a convenient, cheaper alternative to cable. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Cable companies are bound to distribution deals from network conglomerates, including Disney, which require cable firms to pair their most popular channels with less popular ones. As cable-bill prices continued to climb every year, however, consumers balked at paying more for content that they didnt want and some decided to turn to streaming sites.

The shift has prompted cable companies to explore smaller cable packages that cut the bloat. But for many customers, making their own bundles of streaming services has proved appealing. Those not interested in live sports which contributes a lot to the cost of a cable package can easily get news, movies or sitcoms from Netflix or Hulu without having to buy a preset bundle. (Or they can get just the opposite, in the case of ESPNs upcoming stand-alone service.)

Thats provided consumers with a lot of choice, said John Bergmayer, senior counsel at the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge.

The stranglehold of cable isnt broken yet for most people its hard to cut the cord but these are all really good signs, he said.

But its clear from viewers that the cost per service is a growing concern. The current influx of these subscription-based plans is saturating the market, said Jamie ODell, 35, a food safety program manager from Albany, N.Y. We do not need more options for streaming services, she said. We need less.

About 21percent of American video viewers pay for multiple streaming-video on-demand services, according to the market research company GfK. That number has grown by roughly one-third for the past three years.

Big streaming services such as Netflix provide subscribers content from many sources. But many others are now getting into the game. At least six networks have launched services, with subscription fees ranging from $6 to $15 per month. Many of those already offer their shows in some way through existing services.

Now, consumers may find that shows and films they used to be able to access on broader services such as Netflix are pulled out for a separate service. The cost and mental effort of managing multiple services may be starting to prove nettlesome.

I just dont want another subscription bill I have to pay, said Erin Thompson, a mother of four from North Tonawanda, N.Y.

Justifying the hassle of managing another service also puts pressure on Disney and rivals, creating a different kind of relationship with its fans, analysts say.

The company will have a more direct line to consumers but will also have to deal with complaints, for example, about the quality and reliability of their streams.

The appeal of streaming will prompt many more companies to launch their own video streaming services, said Brian Wieser, senior research analyst at Pivotal Research Group. Its inevitable [there will be] more direct-to-consumer offerings as time progresses.

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Freedom from cable isn't free: Flood of streaming services will make cutting the cord more complicated - Washington Post

The Festival of Democracy, a three-day event celebrating freedom, which began here on Saturday stressed the need to resist any attempt to curb freedom of expression while condemning the fascist tendencies of the ruling establishment at the Centre.

Writer N.S. Madhavan, who opened a session in the morning on Writing in a democracy, said good literature was never produced in a democracy, if you look at historical developments across the world. Writers are supposed to truthfully document human conditions and different writers have done it differently in view of the prevailing social circumstances.

However, in our country, human conditions are being narrowed down to certain particular concept. This phase in history indeed has fascist connotations. A human being is supposed to talk Hindi, should be a Hindu, that too a savarna, he said.

Mr. Madhavan said those opposing such notions were first subjected to physical intimidation and threats like what happened to scholars such as M.M. Kalburgi. Then, they infringed on freedom of expression like what happened to the documentary featuring economist Amartya Sen. Their last resort was to harass opponents on available platforms, including social media.

He claimed that writers were not allowed to raise their voice against such developments.

Writers K.P. Ramanunni and Ashokan Cheruvil were present, among others.

In another session on Journalism in the time of fascism, veteran journalist Shashi Kumar alleged that the mainstream media, especially English-language newspapers, were suppressing news that they perceived to be against the interests of the ruling establishment.

The farewell speech of former Vice President Hamid Ansari had an important point about the insecurity being faced by Muslims in the country. The response from the Prime Minister was not reported in the proper context.

In news debates, anchors were often seen taking sides with the Centre. This capitulation to the dominance of the vicious brand of politics of the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was unexpected from the media, he said.

There is some amount of self-regulation in the media. Self regulation in a manner where you wont put the BJP government in bad light, he claimed.

Mr. Kumar also alleged that the English-language news channels were also projecting Kerala as if the law and order situation in the State had collapsed and there was a jungle raj.

He said the situation in the State was not worse that what was happening in States such as Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan.

There were sessions on poetry, music and drama too.

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Primacy for freedom of expression - The Hindu

The Libreboot T400 doesnt look like much. Its basically a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad with the traditional Lenovo/IBM pointer nubbin and a small touchpad. Its a plain black laptop, as familiar as any luggable assigned to a cubicle warrior on the road. But, under the hood, you have a machine that fights for freedom.

The T400 runs Libreboot, a free and open BIOS and the Trisquel GNU/Linux OS. Both of these tools should render the Libreboot T400 as secure from tampering as can be. Your Libreboot T400 obeys you, and nobody else! write its creators, and that seems to be the case.

How does it work? And should you spend about $300 on a refurbished Thinkpad with Linux installed? That depends on what youre trying to do. The model I tested was on the low end with enough speed and performance to count but Trisquel tended to bog down a bit and the secure browser, an unbranded Mozilla based browser that never recommends non-free software, was a little too locked down for its own good. I was able to work around a number of the issues I had but this is definitely not for the faint of heart.

That said, you are getting a nearly fully open computer. The 14.1-inch machine runs a Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor and starts at 4GB of RAM with 160GB hard drive space. That costs about $257 plus shipping and includes a battery and US charger.

Once you have the T400 youre basically running a completely clean machine. It runs a free (as in freedom) operating system complete with open drivers and applications and Libreboot ensures that you have no locked-down software on the machine. You could easily recreate this package yourself on your own computer but I suspect that you, like me, would eventually run into a problem that couldnt be solved entirely with free software. Hence the impetus to let Minifree do the work for you.

If youre a crusader for privacy, security, and open standards, than this laptop is for you. Thankfully its surprisingly cheap and quite rugged so youre not only sticking it to the man but you could possibly buy a few of these and throw them at the man in a pinch.

The era of common Linux on the desktop and not in the form of a secure, libre device like this is probably still to come. While its trivial (and fun) to install a Linux instance these days I doubt anyone would do it outright on a laptop that theyre using on a daily basis. But for less than a price of a cellphone you can use something like the T400 and feel safe and secure that youre not supporting (many) corporate interests when it comes to your computing experience. Its not a perfect laptop by any stretch but its just the thing if youre looking for something that no one but you controls.

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The Minifree Libreboot T400 is free as in freedom - TechCrunch

Donald Trumps archconservative allies in the House are trying to keep the Obamacare repeal dream alive but one key member is also starting discussions about fixing the law.

Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Meadows has started negotiating a deal with a top House moderate, Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ), which would work to stabilize Obamacares individual markets, funding key payments to insurers while giving states more flexibility for their own health care programs.

Meanwhile, on Friday, while most of Congress was home on recess, three House Freedom Caucus members Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Scott Perry (PA), Tom Garrett (VA) were on the House floor introducing and signing a discharge petition that would force the House to vote on a clean Obamacare repeal bill.

Republicans have been stuck in an intra-party battle between reviving Obamacare repeal or moving on and taking small steps to stabilize the law since last months failure in the Senate. The Freedom Caucus is now at the heart of that predicament: While they make a very public gesture to force another repeal vote, their leader is also setting up a scenario in which the law could largely remain in place.

Meadows has entered into initial talks with MacArthur about a much more modest health care bill that would actually be designed to stabilize Obamacare, as Axios first reported.

A House aide emphasized that these talks are in their early stages and do not represent an endorsement from the full Freedom Caucus.

The outline of the emerging deal is pretty simple, per the aide:

The cost-sharing reduction payments, which Vox has explained in great detail, have been repeatedly threatened by Trump in recent weeks. Because of an ongoing lawsuit, Trump could cut off the payments at any time, which could cause insurers to either hike their premiums or drop out of the market altogether. Some top Republicans in Congress have urged Trump not to follow through on the threat, but congressional action is the only sure way to prevent it.

But other Republicans, particularly the most ardent anti-Obamacare members in the Freedom Caucus, would be reluctant to support funding for the health care law without getting anything in return. So their win in this deal would be more flexibility for the state waivers already available under Obamacare.

Conservatives have been seeking such state flexibility throughout the Obamacare repeal debate its not yet clear how the new proposal would differ from previous iterations. There is a wide range of possibilities: The waivers could give states a blank check to undo Obamacares insurance regulations or they could leave most of the laws safeguards in place. It would depend entirely on the specific legislative language.

Part of the theory for conservatives, per the House aide, is that addressing the waivers in the stabilization bill would eliminate the need to deal with them in a bigger repeal-and-replace bill that Meadows and others still hope to revive. Those proposals have consistently run into trouble under the Senates procedural rules, which limit what policies Republicans can include in a budget reconciliation bill that needs only 50 votes to advance in the upper chamber.

But its not clear how this actually helps Republicans get the 50th vote in the Senate for any Obamacare repeal bill. The objections from the Republican senators who voted against three different repeal bills last month were not about the waiver proposals.

Republican leaders also have a packed schedule for the foreseeable future, with government funding and the federal debt ceiling on tap in September, and seem genuinely eager to move onto other issues like tax reform rather than continuing to litigate health care.

So in the end, this could wind up being the best deal the Freedom Caucus and other anti-Obamacare Republicans can get. State flexibility, in exchange for making sure the health care law they hate so deeply doesnt collapse.

Of course, it could still be a struggle. The leader of another conservative group in the House tweeted his skepticism about the nascent deal shortly after it went public.

Meanwhile, the discharge petition is an attempt to force a vote on a proposal the Senate already failed to pass in late July (seven Republicans voted against a proposal to repeal Obamacare and replace it later). But that vote hasnt deterred House conservatives from pushing forward.

If they get 218 signatures on their petition, House Leadership would have to bring a clean Obamacare repeal bill to a full floor for a vote. That vote would be difficult for the dozens of moderate Republicans in vulnerable House seats, and it wouldnt provide a clear path to repealing and replacing the health care law.

The clean repeal proposal would wipe the health laws coverage expansion off the books without a replacement in 2020, Voxs Sarah Kliff wrote, in what Republicans have named a repeal and delay strategy. However, the Congressional Budget Office, which evaluates the impact of bills, says it would still leave 17 million less people insured in the first year.

The House voted to pass a repeal bill in 2015 knowing it would go nowhere under then president Barack Obama. But voting for a repeal bill now is more than just a symbolic statement. There is a sizable contingent of moderates worried about any bill that would amount in a loss of health insurance coverage including the most politically vulnerable members of the House, such as Rep. Darrell Issa.

Forcing vulnerable moderate members into yet another difficult vote on health care is a big risk for a Republican Party looking to keep their majority. But the Freedom Caucus, adamant on making a statement that they still believe in repealing Obamacare, hopes this petition would bully members into a party-line vote. Even if it fails, a signed petition will show who has flipped on Obamacare repeal between 2015 and 2017, one Freedom Caucus aide said.

Freedom Caucus members think that the House passing the repeal bill would put added pressure on senators to change their votes if the measure came up again but there isnt any indication that would be the case.

House Leadership doesnt appear to be behind the new attempt. The House has already passed a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare," House Speaker Paul Ryans spokesperson AshLee Strong told Vox, referencing the 2015 vote.

In other words, there is no need to put members through it again now.

So while with one hand archconservatives members are taking steps down a road that could lead to Obamacare largely remaining the law of the land, they are hankering for another showdown with their colleagues over Obamacare repeal.

Originally posted here:

Freedom Caucus leader is flirting with saving Obamacare - Vox

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel invoked the injustices of communist East Germany on Friday to defend freedom and democracy during a visit to a notorious prison of the former Stasi secret police in Berlin.

Merkel, the daughter of a Protestant pastor who grew up in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), visited the ex-prison of Hohenschoenhausen a day before she launches her campaign for a fourth term as chancellor in a national election on Sept. 24.

Thousands of political prisoners were incarcerated in the jail, which after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the 1990 reunification of Germany became a museum and memorial.

"The injustice that occurred in the GDR, that many people had to experience in an awful way, must not be forgotten," said Merkel, who has just returned to work after a three-week summer holiday.

She said the visit to the former Stasi prison, two days before the anniversary of the start of construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, was "of particular significance for me".

"It seems a long time ago, but it warns us to work hard for freedom and democracy," she said.

During her visit, Merkel met a former inmate, Arno Drefke, who often guides visitors through the spacious former prison, which is now preparing for a two-year renovation that will add new exhibition areas and seminar rooms.

Merkel and her conservatives, in power since 2005, are expected to win another term, although an opinion poll by Infratest dimap published late on Thursday suggested her popularity had dropped 10 percentage points to 59 percent.

However, Merkel appears to have little to fear as her main rival, the Social Democrats' chancellor candidate Martin Schulz, saw his popularity hit a new low of 33 percent, down four points from last month.

Writing by Paul Carrel and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Gareth Jones

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Merkel, visiting ex-Stasi jail, defends freedom and democracy - Reuters

SPEARFISH American flags, veterans organization patches, and emblems of the various United States military branches were visible in downtown Spearfish Thursday at the start of the Freedom Celebration Ride.

Todays all about the greatest people ever the veterans of the United States of America, Robbie Helms, of the band Big Skillet, said during the event. God bless those people. We love you guys!

In its fourth year, the Freedom Celebration Ride is an extension of the Buffalo Chips Freedom Celebration, now in its 26th year. The 2017 ride brought in more than 100 riders and honors Americas veterans, provides entertainment and special guests speakers, and gives riders to enjoy the freedom of the open road on a route across the scenic high plains and foothills north of the Black Hills, starting in Spearfish and ending at the Buffalo Chip.

We are here to honor the sacrifice of all those who have gone and been willing to fight and bleed and sacrifice for this great nation, said Jason Redman, author and retired Navy SEAL. That is what the Freedom Celebration Ride is about. We know unequivocally that this gift that we live in, this free air that we breathe in, the ability to hop on these iron horses and ride around all around this beautiful country and South Dakota it wouldnt have happened if there wasnt a group of Americans (willing to serve) ... I will never, ever, as long as I hold breath in these lungs, apologize for the greatness of the United States of America. And every one of you that wore this uniform, every one of you that served this great nation, contributed to that greatness. And thats what this Freedom Celebration Ride is about.

The $75 ride donation assists wounded vets and their families, benefiting the Warrior Dog Foundation, Combat Wounded Coalition and Americas Mighty Warriors.

Other guest present at the celebration included US Navy SEAL and founder of Warrior Dog Foundation Mike Ritland, Americas Mighty Warriors CEO Debbie Lee, Redman, Purple Heart and Bronze Medal recipient Mary Dague, and retired U.S. Marine Corps Master Sgt. William Spanky Gibson, and once at the Buffalo Chip, participants enjoyed a brief program and catered reception with entertainment, a group photo at the Buffalo Chips Field of Flags, and a chance to pay respects at the Veterans Memorial Wall and Battlefield Cross.

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Music, motorcycles, freedom, and camaraderie - Black Hills Pioneer

FREEDOM -- PennDOT has announced northbound Route 65 in Freedom will close again this weekend from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Monday, weather permitting.

Crews will be painting the bridge that carries traffic from Third Avenue to southbound Route 65 in Freedom. Motorists will be detoured onto the Freedom exit, along Third Avenue and then back onto Route 65.

Additionally, southbound Route 65 traffic will be restricted to a single 10-foot, 6-inch lane during the entire weekend. Third Avenue will also be restricted to 10-foot, 6-inch lanes.

This $20.21 million roadway project includes milling and resurfacing, concrete pavement patching, drainage and guardrail updates, ramp reconstruction, curb and sidewalk work, bridge and retaining wall preservation, sign structure maintenance and signal improvements. The overall project will conclude in late October 2017.

Gulisek Construction Co. of Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, is the prime contractor.

Motorists should use caution when traveling through the corridor.

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Northbound Route 65 in Freedom closed again this weekend - Timesonline.com

The first wave of a "Trans-Gay Caravan" from Latin America arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border this week, where 16 gays and transsexuals asked for asylum and immediate freedom to go anywhere inside the United States.

The publication Departamento 19 reported on the "First Trans-Gay Caravan" of Latin American refugees.

According to a Mexican report on their request to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials at an Arizona crossing, they were to be interviewed but not immediately released.

The group, according to the report, are part of a bigger group seeking to escape harassment in Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua. They also demand to be freed in the United States after processing out of fear they will be harassed in ICE holding facilities on the border.

They had sought protection in Mexico, but were refused,

"Many people do not understand how difficult it is to be transsexual or homosexual in Central American countries, often harassment, rejection and violence begins at the hands of members of their own families," a representative for the group, Nakay Flotte, told the publication Departamento 19.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com

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Latin gays, transsexuals seek asylum, demand immediate freedom in US - Washington Examiner

Giuseppe Garibaldi is best known for leading military campaigns that helped unify Italy, but the famed freedom fighter came very close to taking another notable assignment. And his brush with the Union blue remains one of the most curious tales of the Civil War.

An Italian adventurer and revolutionary might seem like an unlikely candidate for a Civil War general, but in the mid-19th century, the steely-eyed Giuseppe Garibaldi was an internationally recognized symbol of liberty. A sailor and sea captain in his youth, he had first made his name while serving as a guerrilla fighter in civil wars in Brazil and Uruguay in the 1830s and 1840s.

After returning to Italy in 1848, he became a leading figure in the Risorgimento, a movement to expel foreign powers from Italy and unify its various states into one independent nation. Garibaldi and his Red Shirt troops eventually battled with Austrian, French and papal forces, but his greatest achievement came in 1860, when he led a band of volunteers known as The Thousand on a campaign against the Bourbon rulers of Sicily. Though outnumbered and outgunned, his patchwork army emerged victorious after just a few months, clearing the way for the creation of the Kingdom of Italy under the ruler Victor Emmanuel II.

As a result of his contributions to Italian unification, the man known as the Hero of Two Worlds became a military celebrity. Countless dime novels were written about him, and newspapers and magazines chronicled his every move. Garibaldi was particularly beloved in America, where he had briefly lived in the early 1850s. Few men, the New York Herald had once written, have achieved so much for the cause of freedom.

In 1861, as the United States descended into civil war, newspapers began to speculate that Garibaldi might return to America and take part in the struggle to preserve the Union. According to historian Don H. Doyle, a scheme to actually recruit Garibaldi took shape that June, when a U.S. consul named James Quiggle sent a letter to the Italian encouraging him to join Lincolns army. If you do, Quiggle wrote, the name of Lafayette will not surpass yours. The pair proceeded to exchange several letters, including one in which Garibaldi expressed a great desire to serve.

Quiggle had not contacted Garibaldi in any official capacity, but he eventually forwarded their correspondence to the Lincoln administration. After consulting with the President, Secretary of State William Seward decided that Garibaldi might be a valuable asset. On July 27, 1861, Seward sent a dispatch Henry Sanford, a U.S. government agent in Europe. I wish you to proceed at once and enter into communications with the distinguished Soldier of Freedom, it read.

There is no record of Lincoln and Sewards reasoning for courting Garibaldi, but they may have been influenced by the Union Armys lackluster early performances in the field. Federal forces had only recently suffered an embarrassing defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run, and many had chalked the loss up to a lack of leadership. Washington was desperately looking for competent generals, Italian historian Eugenio F. Biagini has written, and Garibaldi was one of proven experience and popularity, and had demonstrated expertise in American-style guerilla warfare. Historian Don H. Doyle, meanwhile, has suggested that Garibaldis appointment might have been viewed as a means of winning support for the Union overseas.

By September 1861, Henry Sanford had made contact with Garibaldi and traveled to meet him at his home on Caprera, a small island off Sardinia. The 54-year-old freedom fighter had previously told an intermediary that he would be very happy to serve a country for which I have so much affection, but during his sit-down with Sanford, he made it clear that the offer was conditional. Not only did he want full command of U.S. forces, he also wanted assurances that the Union was fighting to end slavery. An ardent abolitionist dating back to his days as a South American guerrilla fighter, Garibaldi was insistent that emancipation of the slaves be central to any conflict with the Confederacy. Without it, he told Sanford, the war would appear to be like any civil war in which the world at large could have little interest or sympathy.

With Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation still a year away, Sanford was unable to quell Garibaldis concerns about slavery. He also didnt have authorization to offer the Italian anything beyond a commission as a major general with an independent command. The two men discussed the issues for hours, but Sanford ultimately left Caprera without securing Garibaldis services.

Garibaldi would later tell a friend that slavery had been the main factor in his decision to turn down the Americans. You may be sure that had I accepted to draw my sword for the cause of the United States, he said, it would have been for the abolition of slavery, full, unconditional. Still, some historians have since suggested that his refusal was also motivated by a burning desire to complete the unification of Italy, which was still partially controlled by Austrian and papal forces. Garibaldi probably had no real intention of coming to the United States as long as foreign troops occupied both Venice and Rome, Frank W. Alduino and David J. Coles argue in their book Sons of Garibaldi in Blue and Gray.

Whatever his true motivations were, Garibaldi kept flirting with joining the Union even after his initial refusal. When a U.S. official made another unauthorized overture to him in 1862, he once again set the rumor mill turning by expressing a desire to serve the great American Republic. Newspapers would continue to speculate about his potential recruitment, but the proposed arrangement never came to fruition. Rather than fighting on the battlefields of Virginia or Pennsylvania, Garibaldi spent the rest of the 1860s continuing his quest for the Risorgimento in Italy, suffering several wounds along the way.

While he never directly took up the Union cause, Garibaldi still had an influence on the Civil War from across the Atlantic. Along with serving as the inspiration for the Garibaldi Guard, a regiment from New York composed of Italians and other European immigrants, he was also one of the Unions most vocal supporters abroad. When Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation later took effect in 1863, Garibaldi even wrote the President a famous letter of praise. Posterity will call you the great emancipator, it read, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure.

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Why Lincoln Wanted an Italian Freedom Fighter to Lead His Army - History