Geoffrey Kirsch

Before the midterms of 1866, President Andrew Johnson called his congressional opponents traitors and said they should be hanged.

Voters were so profoundly moved by his words... that they gave his opponents a supermajority in Congress, and the nation got the Fourteenth Amendment.

Moby Dick was published on this day in 1851, so today's bank note comes from Nantucket and features a large vignette of whalers in a longboat about to harpoon a spouting sperm whale. Also on the right, note the Hydrostatic Oil Press. Manufacturers and Mechanics Bank, Nantucket, MA, $3, Dec 5, 1843.🗃️

Text of a speech by Illinois Republican John Farnsworth in 1859 on the floor of the U.S. House: "I propose, briefly, to give some of the reasons why I oppose the extension of the slave power, by the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton constitution; and first, I oppose it because it is contrary to the genius and spirit of our declaration and Constitution, and the designs of the fathers of the Republic, as exhibited in the history of the Government, until a recent period. I know it is now roundly asserted by the Democratic party, that Congress has no rightful authority to interdict or prohibit the introduction of slavery into the Territories of the United States; that to do so would violate the principle of the equality of States; and that party has recently invoked the ad of the Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case-a tribunal which sits yearly, in an appropriate dismal room in the basement of this Capitol, where one can easily realize Dickens's description of the Foggy high court of chancery; and they have obtained the side bar dictum of a majority of those judges to sustain this doctrine. The President of the United States wonders that a doubt could ever have existed, that the Constitution carries slavery into the Territories, and declares that Kansas is as much a slave State as Georgia."

Illinois congressman John Farnsworth comparing the U.S. Supreme Court in Dred Scott to the Bleak House chancery court in 1859 is just *chef's kiss*

[4 weeks out from my book deadline and still finding gems in my own research 🙃]

Faulkner

Boy, Holmes' bad man is really getting a workout these days.

Political violence is bad. It usually begets more political violence.

Celebrating political violence is bad. It usually encourages more political violence, against various targets.

Campus shootings are bad. They make everyone on campus less safe.

It's bad that what I wrote here is controversial.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" might be a fruitful (no pun intended) transatlantic pairing?

Planning this panel for next year's @c19americanists.bsky.social conference in Cincinnati. Email/DM me with questions and/or proposals!

Too easy...

Nearly 250 years of a republic struggling to live up to the ideals of its founding documents only to arrive here.

O gentlemen, the time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long
If life did ride upon a dial’s point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
An if we live, we live to tread on kings.

“It is…a small college. And yet, there are those who love it”

“Kafka name-checked three words in” feels like the lawyer equivalent of noticing a small red dot appearing between your eyes

Planning this panel for next year's @c19americanists.bsky.social conference in Cincinnati. Email/DM me with questions and/or proposals!

Most foreigners at Harvard grasp American principles better than most senior officials in the Trump administration.

Trump Administration Halts Harvard’s Ability to Enroll International Students

This intolerable attack on Harvard’s independence and academic freedom is plainly government retaliation for Harvard’s speech standing up for itself and the rule of law. America must rally to the side of Harvard and its students in court, in Congress and in our communities.

"Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges."
―Billy Budd, Sailor

(Clip is from 2012.)

YouTube video by No Labels Justice David Souter Discusses Protecting Democracy

Souter was right about everything.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nQR...

The Interbellum Constitution A synthesis of legal, political, and social history to show how the post-founding generations were forced to rethink and substantially revise the U.S. consti...

it has taken me a minute to finish, but if you’re a 19th century american history/legal theory nerd you will love this book yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Apt pairing.

"Just a week after the authorities of Boston assembled to carry back a perfectly innocent man, and one whom they knew to be innocent, into slavery, the inhabitants of Concord caused the bells to be rung and the cannons to be fired, to celebrate their liberty +