Geoffrey Kirsch

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

Too easy...

For God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it.

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

What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish?

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

Who’s to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?

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.

Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a Job’s whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals

"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 +

In 1844, "Squire" Samuel Hoar was sent to South Carolina to protest the ongoing enslavement of free black sailors from Massachusetts there. He and his daughter fled Charleston under threats of violence.

Please stop making my research relevant...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_...

Historian here traitors are always trying to kill our republic. On this day Abraham Lincoln was murdered by a Confederate assassin. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.

Fight fiercely, Harvard.

HARVARD TAKES A STAND. Yes!!!!

“The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”

Boston has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever

you might even say that ambition should, as it were, counteract ambition

Can we please remember that John Adams literally represented the Redcoats who did the Boston Massacre.

Like, if you’re going to wave the goddamn flag and say that lawyers ought not to represent clients you disagree with or who are allegedly guilty, then you’re just confused about American lawyers.

A portion of John Quincy Adams' Amistad argument before SCOTUS: "I will not recur to the Declaration of Independence--your Honors have it implanted in your hearts--but one of the grievous charges brought against George III. was, that he had made laws for sending men beyond seas for trial. That was one of the most odious of those acts of tyranny which occasioned the American revolution. The whole of the reasoning is not applicable to this case, but I submit to your Honors that, if the President has the power to do it in the case of Africans, and send them beyond seas for trial, he could do it by the same authority in the case of American citizens. By a simple order to the marshal of the district, he could just as well seize forty citizens of the United States, on the demand of a foreign minister, and send them beyond seas for trial before a foreign court."

Was just reading John Quincy Adams' oral arguments before SCOTUS in the Amistad case and this part seems, uh, pretty relevant

The deadline's been extended to March 17th! There's still time to submit!