While Your Kids Are Home, Ask What They Know About Christmas 1776

by Seth Grossman

While Your Kids and Grandkids Are Home, Tell Them How George Washington Saved America and Changed The World on Christmas Day, 1776.

There was no re-enactment of Washington's crossing of the Delaware River this Christmas Day. It was another casualty of the Wuhan Virus and government's response to it.

During normal times, several thousand visitors gather at noon each Christmas Day at the Washington Crossing Historic Park just north of Trenton, New Jersey.  There they stand for hours to watch dozens of re-enactors dressed as George Washington and his soldiers of the state militias and Continental Army of 1776 board large wooden boats and row from Bucks County, Pennsylvania to the New Jersey side. This is done to remember what George Washington and his 2400 American volunteers did on that remarkable Christmas night of 1776.

That original crossing is depicted in the iconic 1851 painting by German artist Emanuel Leutze. That crossing began ten fateful days in New Jersey that saved America and changed the world.

German artist, Emanuel Leutze -1851 painting

German artist Emanuel Leutze had no idea what the Delaware River looked like when he painted this. However, he brilliantly captured the spirit of Americans fighting for and winning their freedom and inspiring Europeans to do the same. Unfortunately, Germans, Poles and others who fought to establish an American-style constitutional republic in Europe in 1848, were crushed by the German, Russian, and French armies of kings and princes.  Many of these defeated German and other European rebels  fled to the United States, where they actively opposed slavery and supported  efforts by Abraham Lincoln and the the new Republican Party to end it.

Just over six months before that crossing, on July 4, 1776, representatives of thirteen British colonies in North America met in Philadelphia, and approved a document known as our Declaration of Independence .  As President Abraham Lincoln later explained, that Declaration was about far more than the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland".

It also declared that our new nation would be guided by these “self-evident” truths:

"Each of us is created equal. Each of us is endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among us, deriving their just powers with the consent of the governed-- That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness".

Abraham Lincoln at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on 2/22/1861: “I have never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence”. Lincoln’s strongest political feelings were that slavery in America was an evil sin that must be eliminated, and that most authors of our Constitution intended and expected its “ultimate extinction” in the near future.

Five months later, American independence and those words that inspired it seemed as dead as thousands of patriots in Ireland, Scotland, and India who fought and died in previous failed rebellions against corrupt and dictatorial British aristocrats.

One week after the Declaration of Independence was signed and published in Philadelphia, a massive British invasion fleet arrived in New York Harbor. Its 300 warships and 400 transports brought 30,000 well paid, trained, and disciplined British and German soldiers to Staten Island New York.  The German soldiers were rented to the British by Hesse and other small German states to fund their governments while reducing taxes.  These German soldiers, often called Hessians, were well paid, equipped, and trained, and considered among the bravest and most effective soldiers in Europe.

During the next three months, British soldiers and their German, or Hessian auxiliaries overwhelmed George Washington’s 10,000 poorly trained volunteers defending Long Island and Manhattan, They killed or captured half of the Americans. The German Hessians were especially brutal. They used bayonets to execute hundreds of Americans after they dropped their weapons, raised their hands and surrendered at Brooklyn Heights.

In November, 1776, George Washington and his 5,000 remaining soldiers crossed the Hudson River. They tried to make a stand in Hackensack with support from New Jersey militias. However, those militias failed to appear.  Without their support, Washington’s men were badly outnumbered. They had to quickly flee towards Philadelphia to avoid capture. They didn’t stop retreating until after they crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.  They seized every boat on the Jersey side of the river so that the British could not pursue them.

That December, a disgusted George Washington wrote a letter to his brother saying:

“The conduct of the Jerseys has been most infamous. Instead of turning out to defend their country. . . they are making their submissions as fast as they can. . . The few militias that were in arms disbanded themselves. . . and left the poor remains of our army to make the best we could of it”.

Patriot journalist Thomas Paine was with Washington’s army and was just as angry. He said the British left Massachusetts and the rest of New England alone and chose to invade and occupy New York and New Jersey because “New England was not infested with Tories (British sympathizers), and we are!”

Thomas Paine was particularly angry at one “noted Tory who kept a tavern in Amboy, New Jersey”.  According to Paine, that Tory agreed that Americans would sooner or later have to fight for independence from the British Empire. However, as he stood next to his 8 year old child, the Tory said he would not help George Washington’s soldiers because he wanted “peace in my day”.

This infuriated Thomas Paine, who wrote,

“A generous parent should have said, ‘If there must be trouble, let it be in my day so that my child may have peace!’ Paine continued “This single reflection, well applied is sufficient to awaken every man to his duty”.

Thomas Paine’s experience in New Jersey inspired him to write and publish a pamphlet called The American Crisis on December 23, 1776. It began with these words:

These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

While Thomas Paine was writing, George Washington’s battered soldiers got help from a most unlikely source–  Quaker farmers from South Jersey who were known to be pacifists! Quakers came to America because they opposed the wars Britain was fighting against Spain, France, and Holland.  Those pacifist Quakers included William Penn who established Philadelphia. They also included the Smith, Somers, Risley, Scull, Conover, and Leeds families who settled near what is now Atlantic City.

However, once in America, these Quakers slowly changed their thinking.  They still still believed that God did not permit them to fight wars of conquest or aggression.   However, Benjamin Franklin wrote that many of these American Quakers in and around Philadelphia came to believe that God permitted them to build and buy weapons for self-defense.  They believed God permitted them to kill if necessary to defend themselves, their families, their towns  and villages against anyone who attacked them.  Later, these Quakers became known as “fighting Quakers”.

When German soldiers hired by the British occupied Central Jersey, they began stealing food, destroying property, and abusing women in the Quaker towns and farms they occupied.

Companies of militias with “fighting Quakers” throughout southern and central Jersey began to fight back. One of them was the Gloucester County Militia led by Colonel Richard Somers of Somers Point. Colonel Somers was the father of the future Barbary Wars/Tripoli navy hero with his same name. At that time, Gloucester County included what are now Camden and Atlantic Counties.

The words of Thomas Paine and the actions of these “fighting Quakers” persuaded Washington to return to New Jersey and attack the 1,200 Germans (Hessian) troops who had occupied Trenton.

On Christmas Day, 1776, Washington’s George Washington assembled a force of 2,400 soldiers, 200 horses, and 18 cannons in the woods near the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River just north of Trenton.  When it got dark, they began crossing the river in large wooden rowboats.

At that time, it began to rain.  During the night it got colder, the winds picked up, and the rain changed to sleet, then snow, then freezing rain.  Washington hoped to complete the crossing by midnight, and attack Trenton while it was still dark.  However, the bad weather delayed the crossing by three hours. Daylight came while Washington’s men were still marching south towards Trenton.  Two of Washington’s exhausted soldiers fell and died from the cold.

When the Americans arrived at Trenton, Henry Knox and his assistant, 21 year old Alexander Hamilton, skillfully deployed their 18 cannons. At 8 am, George Washington personally led the attack. The Hessians came out, formed a line, and fired a the Americans. However, the Germans were mowed down by American cannon fire.

Henry Knox was a bookseller from Boston with no military training. He learned to operate cannons by reading books. The previous year, Knox helped George Washington drive the British out of Boston by transporting 59 captured British cannons from Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York 300 miles away.  Knox surprised the Hessians at Trenton a year later at Trenton by “keeping his powder dry” in a windy, freezing rainstorm.  Knox did it by using the same wax seals and packaging he used to keep books dry when he shipped them to customers.

The Americans killed 22 Hessians,  including their commander. Another 83 were wounded, and roughly 900 more were taken prisoners.  The Americans suffered no deaths other than the two who died from the cold.  Five more Americans were wounded.  News of this lopsided victory by the Americans against the most feared soldiers of Europe quickly spread throughout America and the world.

The British tried to minimize the impact of their defeat by inventing fake news about the battle. The British falsely claimed that their German auxiliaries were defeated because they were half drunk or asleep from a late night Christmas party.  The truth was that the Germans were very prepared.  Their sentries quickly spotted the Americans and sounded the alarm.  The Hessians quickly grabbed their weapons and lined up for battle.  They were tired because smaller groups of Americans had been attacking them for weeks, including the night before.  The Germans did not have patrols out the night before only because nobody thought an entire army could assemble, march, and “keep its powder dry” in such horrible weather.

The Americans did not punish the captured Germans for their brutality against surrendering Americans three months before in Brooklyn, New York.  George Washington specifically ordered his soldiers to “treat them with humanity”. It was a propaganda coup. The German prisoners wrote letters home to Germany praising the Americans.  This caused widespread opposition in Germany to the renting of more of their soldiers to the British.  It also persuaded many Hessian soldiers to desert to the Americans.  After the war, about 5,000 Hessian soldiers settled in America rather than return to Germany.  Many sent for their families in Germany to join them.

After learning of Washington’s attack, General Charles Cornwallis, the British commander, quickly marched his main British Army of 8,000 men to Trenton.  At first, it looked like most of George Washington’s army would disappear before the British got there.  The enlistments for most of the American soldiers expired on December 31.   However, George Washington persuaded most of them to stay for another month by making an emotional personal appeal, and by persuading Congress to supply a $10 hard money bonus for each man.

On January 2, 1777, Washington’s outnumbered forces stood their ground in the Battle of Assunpink Creek, often known as the Second Battle of Trenton.   The British then prepared to overwhelm the Americans the following day.  However, Washington instead quietly marched his army out of Trenton that night, and attacked the British from behind at nearby Princeton the next day, January 3.

News of these three victories, and the inspiring words of Thomas Paine, quickly spread throughout the American colonies. Thousands of young Americans volunteered to join Washington’s army. There would be five more years of hardship and struggle. However, American independence, liberty and prosperity were all saved during those ten fateful days in New Jersey that began with Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware on Christmas night in 1776.

Years later, in 1941, America ended the Holocaust and saved Europe from Hitler and Communism. America also saved China and East Asia from mass murder and brutal invasion and occupation by Imperial Japan. Without the America that was saved during those ten days in New Jersey that began on Christmas, 1776, today’s world would be a much darker place.

Seth Grossman, Executive Director 
info@libertyandprosperity.com
(609) 927-7333
info@libertyandprosperity.com

Posters? Dems allow weakest possible response to slavery

by Rubashov

Led by virtue-signaling poseurs like Senator Loretta Weinberg, Democrat legislative leaders have held up addressing the problem of modern slavery.In fact, they don’t even recognize it as a problem and consistently fail to call it by its name – slavery.

New Jersey Democrats openly diss the United Nations, and the work of people like UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed, who recently reminded world leaders: “This is 2020. Centuries have passed since the end of the transatlantic slave trade. Yet more than 40.3 million people remain victims of modern slavery — 5 in every 1,000 people in the world… Modern slavery is a blight in our world that we must eradicate.”

Human trafficking is modern day slavery – and yet there are legislators in Trenton and their staffs who not only deny it but enable it by blocking legislation designed to stop human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of children. Lawyer-lobbyist firms are some of the biggest supporters of the primarily Democrat legislators who react to any common sense restrictions on sexual exploitation as wanting to “take away my porn”.

The Internet is used extensively by human traffickers to ensnare their victims and then to monetize their degradation and suffering. The New York Times recently outed Pornhub, for its role in monetizing crimes like child rape. Two Fridays ago, the New York Times reported:“Facebook removed 12.4 million images related to child exploitation in a three-month period this year. Twitter closed 264,000 accounts in six months last year for engaging in sexual exploitation of children.”

What is Pornhub? The New York Times points out details that would shock all but the most hardened Democrat legislators and their staffs:

“Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for ‘girls under18’ (no space) or ‘14yo’ leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.”

How does Pornhub monetize the rape of children? Again, from the New York Times:

“After a 15-year-old girl went missing in Florida, her mother found her on Pornhub — in 58 sex videos. Sexual assaults on a 14-year-old California girl were posted on Pornhub and were reported to the authorities not by the company but by a classmate who saw the videos. In each case, offenders were arrested for the assaults, but Pornhub escaped responsibility for sharing the videos and profiting from them.”

A 23-year-old university student says that “Pornhub became my trafficker.” She was trafficked when she was 9 years-old and is now studying to be an attorney. She told the New York Times: “I’m still getting sold… I may never be able to get away from this. I may be 40 with eight kids, and people are still masturbating to my photos.”

an inadequate response to the problem uncovered by the New York Times. In response to all this national publicity about modern slavery – human trafficking – and the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and children, the Democrat-controlled Legislature did something… they passed a bill to require posters to be hung-up at locations like dressing rooms, restrooms, and restroom stalls at strip clubs, sexually oriented businesses, and massage parlors. This is not a bad thing and it does serve a purpose, but it is an inadequate response to the problem uncovered by the New York Times. A poster cannot stop what Pornhub is up to. The technology employed simply isn’t up to the job.

While blocking other legislation, the Democrats allowed this legislation (S-280) to get a hearing and a vote because now they can say they did something about “human trafficking” (they refuse to join the United Nations in calling it “modern slavery”). Now Democrats can go back to protecting the corporate establishment that is invested in platforms like Pornhub.

In a press statement, S-280's Republican sponsor, Senator Tom Kean Jr., noted: “Human trafficking occurs today across New Jersey in places where many of us would never suspect it, including our own communities. Victims are often lured with the prospect of a job, and then have their passports, money, and identification stolen by their handlers. They’re moved around and forced to work for the benefit of others. It’s imperative that victims and those who may have witnessed exploitation know that help is just a phone call away.

Senator Kean’s press statement specifically stated: “Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery that exploits victims for sex, labor, or both.”

His legislation, S-280, requires the New Jersey Commission on Human Trafficking to develop new signs and posters with directions for obtaining help and services to be displayed in places where the victims of human trafficking are most likely to see them. The new public awareness poster would include the toll-free phone number for the National Human Trafficking Hotline, a 24-hour service.

Posters will be placed in workplaces, bars, airports, train stations, welcome centers, truck stops, weigh stations, emergency rooms, urgent care centers, farm labor contractors, job recruitment centers, service areas, rest areas along interstate highways, public transportation, hotels, motels, campsites, and similar places of public accommodation. All of this is good and Senator Kean deserves great thanks for shaming the Democrats into passing this legislation, but the Democrats continue to oppose any measure to address the problems uncovered by the New York Times.

Legislation to shut down Internet-based sex trafficking and slavery does exist and has been waiting for a hearing and a vote. It is called the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act. Senator Steve Oroho has championed this legislation for years. Democrats like Loretta Weinberg and Teresa Ruiz have blocked it from getting a hearing and a vote.

To make matters worse, the NJGOP has been AWOL in its support of the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act. In advance of Tuesday’s vote for a new NJGOP Chairman, we suggested that Members of the State Committee ask the two candidates for Chairman – Bob Hugin and Mike Lavery – to take a position on the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act. For Bob Hugin, it would have been a re-affirmation, because he supported the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act at a bi-partisan event in 2018 to support its passage…

Unfortunately, we have not heard from Mike Lavery, the eventual winner and new NJGOP Chairman. Lavery held the Chairmanship in 2017, and we did not hear from him then on the Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation Prevention Act. This is something that Mike Lavery needs to correct. Every State Committee Member – and especially those who voted for him – needs to take personal responsibility to ensure that Chairman Lavery and the NJGOP take a clear stand against slavery, against human trafficking, against the sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and children.

Opposition to slavery is at the very core of who the Republican Party is. It is the very reason it was established. It is important that the New Jersey Republican Party take a stand and do the right thing. Activists can’t do it alone, the entire party should stand up for victims of slavery and sexual exploitation.

“If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.”

Abraham Lincoln
First Republican President of the United States of America

The Reparations Racket is an exercise in vote-buying

Most of those alive today are descendants of slaves. Wikipedia defines slavery as follows:

Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property. A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalized, de jure slavery. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against their own will. Scholars also use the more generic terms such as unfree labour or forced labour to refer to such situations. However, and especially under slavery in broader senses of the word, slaves may have some rights and protections according to laws or customs.

Slavery existed in many cultures, dating back to early human civilizations. A person could become enslaved from the time of their birth, capture, or purchase.

Slavery was legal in most societies at some time in the past, but is now outlawed in all recognized countries. The last country to officially abolish slavery was Mauritania in 1981. Nevertheless, there are an estimated 40.3 million people worldwide subject to some form of modern slavery. The most common form of modern slave trade is commonly referred to as human trafficking. In other areas, slavery (or unfree labour) continues through practices such as debt bondage, the most widespread form of slavery today, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage.

Race doesn’t enter in to it, as all manner of human beings, all colors and creeds, have enslaved their fellow man since the beginning of time. If it is, as some suggest, our original sin (and it is high on the list of sins) then it is a sin shared by all mankind, one that in our humility we must all account for.

The Bible tells us that the Israelites often found themselves enslaved as a people – by the Egyptians, and later, by the Romans. Slavery existed in the Americas at the time of its first contact with Europe. At the start of the American Republic, there were two African-based slave trades. One, out of sub-Saharan Africa, provided human beings to slaveholders in the United States and European colonies in America. The other, based in North Africa, brought European slaves and others to Islamic markets. The United States fought two wars to end the latter (1801-05 and 1815) and a civil war (1861-65) to end the former.

Politically, the Democrat Party was the institutional face of the slavery in America. You need only read the Democrat Party platforms prior to the Civil War to recognize this. Long after the Democrats were forced to give up on slavery, they continued to commemorate their slave-holding heritage. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Bernie Sanders… they all have attended Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners and have, by doing so, honored those two slave-owning Democrats.

Slavery in America ended with the advent of the Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, was elected in 1860 with 39.8% of the vote. Lincoln was sworn-in on March 4, 1861. The American Civil War began a month later, on April 12, 1861. By then seven Southern states had seceded from the Union.

At the 1860 census, it was recorded that those in slavery made up 13 percent of the United States’ population. Slavery existed in 14 of the then 33 states (by the end of the war there would be 36 states). 3.9 million people were enslaved, but only 8 percent of American families were slaveholders. Slaveholders did not constitute a majority in any of those 14 states in which slavery was tolerated. But though a minority, slaveholders were an exceedingly rich minority.

All the anti-slavery states (as well as some of the slaveholding ones) produced soldiers and sailors for the holy cause of abolition. New Jersey furnished 76,814 soldiers and sailors – 1,185 of whom were African-American. This was a smaller contribution than neighboring states like Pennsylvania (337,936) and New York (448,850). It was claimed that New Jersey was less enthusiastic than more Republican states. In 1864, in the middle of the war, New Jersey would field the Democrat candidate against Lincoln, who won the state’s 7 electoral votes and a 53% to 47% popular vote win.

Nevertheless, 5,754 New Jersey soldiers/sailors gave their lives in that war to end slavery. Again, neighboring states gave more to the cause. Pennsylvania lost 33,183 of its sons. New York lost 46,534. Regiments were segregated then, so we know that most of those who gave their lives were classified as “white”. But it should be noted that they fought alongside comrades who were classified as “colored” – 36,847 of whom died. In all 178,975 “colored” soldiers and sailors served in the war.

Some Democrats have come up with the ridiculous fable wherein they argue that the parties “switched” ideologies. No, you will not find support for slavery in any Republican Party platform. Unfortunately, the Democrats cannot make that claim. Slavery is the sin of their party. Burdened by such a sin, it is natural that the Democrats wish to deflect the blame for it onto a wider population. And so they have come up with the idea of “reparations”.

What the Democrats propose is a tax (it’s always about a tax with them, isn’t it) on some people – regardless of whether or not their ancestors had slaves, or fought and died to end slavery, or even were in the United States before 1865. Then the Democrats propose that they make a gift of this money to a different group of people.

This satisfies the Democrats’ need to publicly proclaim their “goodness”. It also absolves their party of its unique blame by vastly expanding that blame to others, regardless of whether they have any specific guilt at all or of the sacrifices made by their ancestors. And finally, the Democrats calculate that by taking from Peter and giving it to Paul, Peter will be silenced into submission and Paul will reward the Democrats with his vote. Yes, the Democrats are without shame.

Later today, you can catch this shameless performance at the Assembly Appropriations Committee, Committee Room 11, Fourth Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey. The performance is for the benefit of the Democrat Party of Phil Murphy, Steve Sweeney, and Craig Coughlin.

Stay tuned…