So Much for Free Speech – Today In Southern History
25 May 1861
On this date in 1861…
U.S. President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus enabling him to imprison any critics for as long as he pleased without charge. One of the first uses Lincoln put the suspension to was to imprison any Maryland legislators that supported their state’s secession without a warrant, including Frank Key Howard, the grandson of Francis Scott Key who was hauled from his home in a midnight raid by federal troops just because he ‘might’ vote for secession.
Other Years:
1539 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto started his exploration of the American South at present-day Tampa Bay, Florida.
1816 – Confederate General Henry H. Sibley was born.
1856 – Northern terrorist John Brown led the Pottawatomie Massacre of Southern settlers in Kansas.
1863 – Ohio Democrat leader Clement Vallandigham was banished to the Confederate States for violating a U.S. General Order banning public criticism of the War of Northern Aggression.
1864 – Battle of New Hope Church, outside Dallas, Georgia.
1878 – Performer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was born in Richmond, Virginia.
1925 – John T. Scopes was indicted in Tennessee for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution.
1943 – A riot occurred at a Mobile, Alabama, shipyard when it was learned that 12 black workers would be promoted ahead of whites.
1953 – The first non-commercial educational television station began broadcast in Houston, Texas.
1959 – A U.S. Supreme Court decision declared that a Louisiana law prohibiting black-white boxing was unconstitutional.
1961 – In a speech at Rice University in Houston, Texas U.S. President John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
2011 - Oprah Winfrey of Kosciusko, MS aired her last show, ending twenty-five years of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
2019 - A tornado tore through El Reno, Oklahoma killing two and injuring dozens.
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