"A Combination of the Rich and the Ignorant"

"This combination is the embodiment of Hamilton's warning in 'Federalist No. 71' that the people are continually beset by 'the wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate, by the artifices of men who possess their confidence more than they deserve it.' A demagogue with contempt for the Constitution, colluding with many of the wealthiest Americans on the promise that their wealth will be translated into political power and favors is just the sort of alliance that the Founders warned would corrupt popular government: that 'the people,' in Madison’s phrase, 'would be misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men.'"

At The Atlantic, George Thomas writes that today "the country is witnessing these three fears come together: a demagogue who unites the self-interested rich with the politically ignorant."

And Alexis Coe at Slate revists pertinent sentences cut from the final draft of George Washington's Farewell Address.

"Biden's July 24 rebuked Trump's January 6"

"Biden's act of renunciation gives power to his words of denunciation. By demonstrating that he cared about something higher than personal ambition, the president became more credible when he accused his chief opponent of caring for nothing other than personal ambition. By surrendering the power that he'd once hoped to keep, Biden condemned by contrast the predecessor who clung to the power he'd lost."

David Frum at The Atlantic compares Joe Biden to Cinncinatus and Donald Trump to Catiline.

Gold from Dross

"In a world as compromised as ours, a soul so exalted was always destined for the Cross. Jefferson's Bible ends before the Resurrection, with Jesus crucified by the Roman occupiers, as the Gospels tell us he was. Jefferson’s austere editing turns the killing almost into an afterthought—a desiccated reiteration of Socrates' final encounter with hemlock, the simple consequence of having offended the wrong people. For Thurman, the Crucifixion was an emphatic lesson in creative weakness: by sticking out his neck and accepting the full implications of his own vulnerability, Christ had radically identified himself with the worst off. Those societal castoffs who could never get a break now had a savior, and a champion, and a model. This, for Thurman, is as great a teaching as anything that Jesus merely said. Where death, for Jefferson's Jesus, is an ending, for Thurman's it is a necessary precondition—just a start." 

At The New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham reads Peter Manseau's The Jefferson Bible: A Biography.

And Nicole Penn reviews Manseau's book at The Bulwark.

"If History Is Boring, It's the Historian's Fault"

"There's a lot of magical thinking when it comes to Washington's road to emancipating his slaves upon Martha's death. The declaration that's usually made is that Washington began to think differently during the Revolution, which I challenge. It's not that he began to think differently. It's that he became the most famous person in the world and was exposed to people who he respected, like the Marquis of Lafayette, who were telling him, 'Listen, this is terrible and you could change the world and everyone would love you for it.' He was well aware from that moment forward that it did affect his legacy. Let's be realistic about this, and let's also talk about the times that he could've emancipated them.

Karin Wulf at Smithsonian Magazine talks with Alexis Coe, author of You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington.

"'Historians Can Never Forget That It Is a Debate They Are Interpreting'"

"Journalist and author E.J. Dionne once observed that we are a nation conceived in argument. None of these were more important than the meaning attached to the Constitution, which played such a central role in creating our sense of nationhood. I would caution my conservative friends from trying to hijack the meaning of the Constitution for their own ends by playing the trump card (no pun intended), that the founders were all in agreement with modern right-wing politics. How could this be true when they didn't even agree among themselves about how to interpret the Constitution? Instead, lets debate the issues of our day so the American people can make an informed choice without resorting to historically dubious claims."

Donald J. Fraser at History News Network asks, "What do historians make of originalism?"

"How Far Must Things Go?"

"In one respect this was an understatement: Western or otherwise, the United States is the only modern industrial urban nation that persists in maintaining a gun culture. It is the only industrial nation in which the possession of rifles, shotguns, and handguns is lawfully prevalent among large numbers of its population. It is the only such nation that has been impelled in recent years to agonize at length about its own disposition toward violence and to set up a commission to examine it, the only nation so attached to the supposed 'right' to bear arms that its laws abet assassins, professional criminals, berserk murderers, and political terrorists at the expense of the orderly population—and yet it remains, and is apparently determined to remain, the most passive of all the major countries in the matter of gun control. Many otherwise intelligent Americans cling with pathetic stubbornness to the notion that the people's right to bear arms is the greatest protection of their individual rights and a firm safeguard of democracy—without being in the slightest perturbed by the fact that no other democracy in the world observes any such 'right' and that in some democracies in which citizens' rights are rather better protected than in ours, such as England and the Scandinavian countries, our arms control policies would be considered laughable."

American Heritage hosts Richard Hofstadter's 1970 article "America as a Gun Culture."

And Patrick Blanchfield at Foreign Policy follows up forty-six years later.

"A Blue Wall" Rising

"Leading in the polls and anticipating victory, Democrats have sketched an aggressive agenda on issues where strong consensus appears to exist in the party, including new laws on gun control, contraception and environmental regulation. Ms. Nelson said she had met with the speaker of the Oregon Statehouse about enacting policy across state lines. The three states' Democratic governors have spoken regularly about policy collaboration, and over the summer began coordinated talks on climate change with foreign heads of state."

Alexander Burns and Kirk Johnson in The New York Times writes that the Washington State Senate may soon have a Democratic majority, as do Oregon and California to the south.

"Our Misguided Tendency to Blindly Worship the Constitution"

"Pennsylvania physician Benjamin Rush was less diplomatic. 'What is the present moral character of the citizens of the United States?' he asked during the ratification controversy. 'I need not describe it…. Nothing but a vigorous and efficient government can prevent their degenerating into savages.' 'Democracy,' he insisted, 'is the devil's own government.' By the late-1780s it had become conventional wisdom among political elites that, as Elbridge Gerry put it, 'the evils we experience flow from an excess of democracy.' The Constitution was designed to reverse the democratic trajectory of American politics.
"The problem with the economic interpretation, however, is that it tends to conflate elitism with selfishness."

Matthew C. Simpson at The New Republic reviews Michael J. Klarman's The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution.

"Truly Our First 'Civil War'"

"Taylor's not interested in a triumphalist account of the nation's origins; instead, his core arguments deliberately overturn the notion that the Revolution was fought for egalitarian, democratic principles. Most colonists, Taylor highlights, felt deeply attached to the British monarchy on the eve of the Revolution. There was no distinct American identity to speak of, and everywhere Britain's American colonists looked—north to French Canada, south to Spanish America—they saw settlers with virtually no political autonomy. Their king, meanwhile, granted them greater civil liberties than any other European ruler; for much of the 18^th century, British monarchs allowed elected Colonial assemblies to run their own affairs. But rather than inculcating a sense of independence, these Colonial assemblies only made American colonists cherish more deeply their status as 'free-born Englishmen.'
"So why, then, a war for independence?"

Eric Herschthal in Slate reviews Alan Taylor's American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804.

"The Entire Insurrectionist Theory of the Second Amendment Is Fabricated"

"Taken at face value, all of this rhetoric adds up to one very clear belief: If you believe the United States government has grown tyrannical, the Second Amendment protects your right to rebel violently against it, using firearms, to reclaim your liberty. Cruz and his ilk rarely specify precisely what this revolt would look like, but the implication is extraordinarily clear: Armed Americans should shoot enough government officials as is necessary to overthrow perceived oppression. The Cruz-endorsed insurrectionist theory of the Second Amendment, in other words, is basically a tacit permission slip to assassinate political leaders whom one deems to be oppressive.

"And that, it seems, is precisely what Trump implied on Tuesday."

Mark Joseph Stern in Slate discusses how "the GOP's current framing of gun rights quite explicitly licenses an armed revolt against tyrants."

And in a 2011 Atlantic article, Garrett Epps explains the fallacy of "the insurrectionist idea."

"Slave Labor to Maintain His Wealth, His Lifestyle and His Reputation"

"George Washington died on Dec. 14, 1799. At the time of his death, 318 enslaved people lived at Mount Vernon and fewer than half of them belonged to the former president. Washington's will called for the emancipation of his slaves following the death of his wife. He completed in death what he had been unwilling to do while living, an act made easier because he had no biological children expecting an inheritance. Martha Washington lived until 1802 and upon her death all of her human property went to her inheritors. She emancipated no one."


For Presidents Day, Erica Armstrong Dunbar in The New York Times looks at George Washington and slavery.

"Oh, and Its CEO Jim McNerny’s Total Compensation Is Somewhere North of $20 Million"

"But to really address the underlying trends will also mean taking on the more fundamental forces that lead to an outcome like we just saw in the Puget Sound: strengthening labor laws and unions in right-to-work states to weaken employers' race-to-the-bottom threats to move south; raising taxes on upper incomes and capital gains to slightly rebalance the equation between the McNernys of the world and their flush investors on the one hand and their overmatched workers on the other; and, perhaps most difficult of all, changing the norms for acceptable behavior by corporate titans, even if they've been named to the presidential exports council."

Alec MacGillis at The New Republic reacts to the union vote at Boeing near Seattle.

"That's Right, the Father of Our Country Had No Difficulty Imposing a Health Insurance Mandate"

"Six years later, in 1798, Congress addressed the problem that the employer mandate to buy medical insurance for seamen covered drugs and physician services but not hospital stays. And you know what this Congress, with five framers serving in it, did? It enacted a federal law requiring the seamen to buy hospital insurance for themselves. That’s right, Congress enacted an individual mandate requiring the purchase of health insurance. And this act was signed by another framer, President John Adams."

Einer Elhauge in The New Republic explores health-care policy during the Early Republic.

"The 'James Dean' of Disability Studies"

"'I relocated the problem from me to outside of me, which is part of the transition any member of a minority group has to go through,' he said."

Valerie J. Nelson writes an obituary for historian Paul Longmore in the Los Angeles Times.

"Without a Single Footstep to Guide Us"

"One area where Wood makes a particularly noteworthy contribution is in tracing the surprise development of America’s democratic identity. 'Surprise' is the word. Too often forgotten is the fact that America’s patrician founders harbored great fears about the 'excesses of democracy.' Though the new country was to be a daring trial in self-government, it was expected to be guided less by egalitarian impulses than by the aristocratic beliefs of well-bred gentlemen. That day, however, was quickly waning."

In The New York Times, Jay Winik reviews Gordon Wood's Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815.

Equality of Opportunity

"There are, in short, three ways to become a U.S. citizen--to be born on U.S. soil, to U.S. citizens or foreign nationals; to be born to one or more U.S. citizen parents abroad; and to be born a foreign national, but to become a citizen of the U.S. by immigration to the U.S. and naturalization according to U.S. law.
"The Constitution excludes the third category of American citizens--naturalized immigrants--from ever being eligible to become president of the United States (or vice-president, inasmuch as the vice-president, who might inherit the office, must meet all of the qualifications of a president)."

Michael Lind in Salon calls for a constitutional amendment to let naturalized citizens serve as president.

"Redcoat Holdouts Still Fighting American Revolution"

"'Somewhere in the Province of Massachusetts Bay there is a loyal countryman in whose farmhouse we can tarry for a night. Once rested, we shall strike a final blow to the treasonous Yankees.'
"Added Thorpe, 'By God, the jewel of the His Majesty's crown shan't be lost!'"

From The Onion.

Back to Old Virginny

"David Muraca, director of archaeology for the George Washington Foundation, said the size, characteristics and location of the structure, as well as many artifacts from the time of Washington’s youth, had led experts to conclude that this was indeed the house they were looking for. 'This is it,' Mr. Muraca said firmly."

John Noble Wilford in The New York Times reports that archaeologists have found the remnants of George Washington's childhood home near Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

"But today Britons have a take on Guy Fawkes that is much at odds with the historical one. Once Fawkes was a symbol of the traitor within. The people were called to be on guard against his like. No longer. Today Guy Fawkes is increasingly viewed as the heroic figure prepared to stand against an unjust and oppressive state, as a martyr and a victim of torture."

Scott Horton in Harper's looks back to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 for contemporary lessons in counterterrorism.

Retired Gen. George Washington Criticizes Bush's Handling Of Iraq War

"However, White House response to the former general's criticism was swift and sharp. Spokesman Tony Fratto dismissed Washington as 'increasingly irrelevant' and 'a relic' who 'made some embarrassing gaffes' during his own military career, such as the Continental Army's near destruction in the Battle of Long Island in 1776.
'The general's reckless and irresponsible comments show that he clearly does not understand the realities of 21st-century warfare,' Fratto said."

From The Onion.