When former Congressman Mark Stedman throws in the towel on his presidential campaign, his only choice is to return to his home state and decide how to spend the rest of his life ... until he meets Josiah Stoltzfus, an Amish farmer from Pennsylvania. Stedman learns more from Josiah in a few hours than in his many years in office. He comes to the conclusion that someone like Josiah should be running the country. Not a career politician, but someone with a little old-fashioned common sense, someone who’s not afraid of rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands dirty. Someone like Josiah Stoltzfus. Using his old campaign headquarters for a base, Mark Stedman determines to introduce a new candidate to America. He pledges to do everything in his power to make sure Josiah gets elected. But can a plain man of faith turn the tide of politics and become the leader of America, and what will he have to risk to do it?

Publisher Description

The 2016 election triggered criticism of America's Electoral College. Opponents argue that it is time to do away with the Electoral College system, whose creation, they contend, was an accident of history in the first place. This small volume sets the record straight. In fact, the Electoral College was an ingenious creation of our Founders.The Founders designed the College to fit in with the rest of the federal system and preserve the division of powers, the moderating influence of states, and a republican government that respects the consent of the governed. The Electoral College represents a kind of insurance limiting the influence of demagoguery. As this quick, easy-to-read handbook shows, without the Electoral College, America would see more partisan and national grandstanding, not less.

In this long-awaited follow-up to his critically acclaimed 1967 classic, Six Seconds in Dallas, Josiah Thompson reveals major new forensic discoveries since the year 2000 that overturn previously accepted “facts” about the Kennedy assassination. Together they provide what no previous book on the assassination has done—incontrovertible proof that JFK was killed in a crossfire. Last Second in Dallas is not a conspiracy book. No theory of who did it is offered or discussed. Among the discoveries: The test showing that all recovered bullet fragments came from Oswald’s rifle was mistaken. Several fragments could have come from bullets of any manufacturer and any caliber. The sudden two-inch forward movement of the president’s head in the Zapruder film just before his head explodes is revealed to be an optical illusion caused by the movement of Zapruder’s camera. This leaves without further challenge clear evidence that this shot came from a specific location to the right front of the limousine. Detailed analysis of film frames matched by the newly validated acoustic evidence show a second shot struck the president’s head from behind less than a second later. Result: two killing shots to the head from opposite directions in the final second of the shooting—hence the book’s title. At once a historical detective story and a deeply personal narrative by a major figure in the field, Last Second in Dallas captures the drama and sweep of events, detailing government missteps and political bias as well as the junk science, hubris, and controversy that have dogged the investigation from the beginning. Into this account Thompson weaves his own eventful journey, that of a Yale-educated scholar who in 1976 resigned his tenured professorship in philosophy to become a private investigator in San Francisco, developing a national reputation. Profusely illustrated, Last Second in Dallas features dozens of archive photographs, including Zapruder film frames reproduced at the highest clarity ever published.

A major literary moment: after being lost to history for more than a century, The Road to Dawn uncovers the incredible story of the real-life slave who inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin. -He rescued 118 enslaved people -He won a medal at the first World's Fair in London -Queen Victoria invited him to Windsor Castle -Rutherford B. Hayes entertained him at the White House -He helped start a freeman settlement, called Dawn, that was known as one of the final stops on the Underground Railroad -He was immortalized in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, the novel that Abraham Lincoln jokingly blamed for sparking the Civil War But before all this, Josiah Henson was brutally enslaved for more than forty years. Author-filmmaker Jared A. Brock retraces Henson's 3,000+ mile journey from slavery to freedom and re-introduces the world to a forgotten figure of the Civil War era, along with his accompanying documentary narrated by Hollywood actor Danny Glover. The Road to Dawn is a ground-breaking biography lauded by leaders at the NAACP, the Smithsonian, senators, authors, professors, the President of Mauritius, and the 21st Prime Minister of Canada, and will no doubt restore a hero of the abolitionist movement to his rightful place in history.

An inspiring and informative book for kids about the past and future of America's presidents. Who will be the NEXT president? Could it be you? When George Washington became the first president of the United States, there were nine future presidents already alive in America, doing things like practicing law or studying medicine. When JFK became the thirty-fifth president, there were 10 future presidents already alive in America, doing things like hosting TV shows and learning the saxophone. And right now—today!—there are at least 10 future presidents alive in America. They could be playing basketball, like Barack Obama, or helping in the garden, like Dwight D. Eisenhower. They could be solving math problems or reading books. They could be making art—or already making change. • A breezy, kid-friendly survey of American history and American presidents • Great for teachers, librarians, and other educators • Kate Messner's nonfiction picture books have been lauded by critics and received a variety of awards. For young readers and students who loved The New Big Book of Presidents, Lincoln and Kennedy: A Pair to Compare, and Kid Presidents: True Tales of Childhood from America's Presidents. A helpful addition to curriculums of 5th- to 8th-grade students studying U.S. History and civics and the federal government. • For readers ages 8–12 • S. history for kids • Students, librarians, teachers • 5th–8th-grade kids From award-winning author Kate Messner and New York Times bestselling artist Adam Rex comes a timely and compelling compendium about the U.S. presidents—before they were presidents. Kate Messner is an award-winning author whose many books for kids have been selected as Best Books by the New York Times, Junior Library Guild, IndieBound, and Bank Street College of Education. She lives on Lake Champlain with her family. Adam Rex is the author and illustrator of many beloved picture books and novels, including Nothing Rhymes with Orange and the New York Times bestseller Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. He has worked with the likes of Jon Scieszka, Mac Barnett, Jeff Kinney, and Neil Gaiman. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Soon after the assassination of President Lincoln in April 1865, newspaper editor Josiah Gilbert Holland traveled to Illinois to talk with people who had known Abraham Lincoln "back when." In 1866 Holland published the earliest full-scale life of the fallen leader. A great popular success, Holland's biography introduced American readers who were hungry for personal information about Lincoln's early life to some of the most famous and enduring Lincoln stories. From Holland the reader learned about Lincoln making restitution for a ruined book, the railsplitter earning his first silver dollar, the millhorse's kick to his head, the wrestling match with Jack Armstrong. Holland relayed homey stories about the young Illinois legislator and lawyer and poignant ones about the president during the dark days of the Civil War. Holland was one of the earliest biographers of Lincoln to insist that Lincoln had always opposed slavery and had planned consistently for emancipation. Most debatable, from the viewpoint of some later historians, Holland demonstrated that Lincoln was "eminently a Christian President." To understand the sixteenth president and the making of his public image, it is necessary to begin with Holland's Life of Abraham Lincoln. J. G. Holland (1819-1881) was editor-in-chief of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican and founder of Scribner's Monthly. Introducer Allen C. Guelzo is the author of The Crisis of the American Republic: A History of the Civil War and Reconstruction Era. He is Grace F. Kea Professor of American History and chair of the History Department at Eastern College in Pennsylvania.

Vital perspectives for the divided Trump era on what the Constitution's framers intended when they defined the extent—and limits—of presidential power One of the most vexing questions for the framers of the Constitution was how to create a vigorous and independent executive without making him king. In today's divided public square, presidential power has never been more contested. The President Who Would Not Be King cuts through the partisan rancor to reveal what the Constitution really tells us about the powers of the president. Michael McConnell provides a comprehensive account of the drafting of presidential powers. Because the framers met behind closed doors and left no records of their deliberations, close attention must be given to their successive drafts. McConnell shows how the framers worked from a mental list of the powers of the British monarch, and consciously decided which powers to strip from the presidency to avoid tyranny. He examines each of these powers in turn, explaining how they were understood at the time of the founding, and goes on to provide a framework for evaluating separation of powers claims, distinguishing between powers that are subject to congressional control and those in which the president has full discretion. Based on the Tanner Lectures at Princeton University, The President Who Would Not Be King restores the original vision of the framers, showing how the Constitution restrains the excesses of an imperial presidency while empowering the executive to govern effectively.

The former senator and presidential candidate offers a provocative new assessment of the first "national security president" James Monroe is remembered today primarily for two things: for being the last of the "Virginia Dynasty"—following George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison—and for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, his statement of principles in 1823 that the western hemisphere was to be considered closed to European intervention. But Gary Hart sees Monroe as a president ahead of his time, whose priorities and accomplishments in establishing America's "national security" have a great deal in common with chief executives of our own time. Unlike his predecessors Jefferson and Madison, Monroe was at his core a military man. He joined the Continental Army at the age of seventeen and served with distinction in many pivotal battles. (He is prominently featured at Washington's side in the iconic painting Washington Crossing the Delaware.) And throughout his career as a senator, governor, ambassador, secretary of state, secretary of war, and president, he never lost sight of the fact that without secure borders and friendly relations with neighbors, the American people could never be truly safe in their independence. As president he embarked on an ambitious series of treaties, annexations, and military confrontations that would secure America's homeland against foreign attack for nearly two hundred years. Hart details the accomplishments and priorities of this forward-looking president, whose security concerns clearly echo those we face in our time. "A well-written, useful précis of Monroe’s life and career." - Kirkus Reviews