Posts Tagged ‘U.S. history’
Sunday Morning on C-SPAN2's Book TV
At 10:15 a.m. on this Sunday, March 28, C-SPAN2’s Book TV is scheduled to run an interview I did with them at the Virginia Festival of the Book last weekend in Charlottesville. The subject is Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy.
Read MoreLeadership and the Constitutional Convention
Business guru Tom Peters (In Search of Excellence) has a new book out titled The Little Big Things, 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence. For me, what’s interesting about this book is that he reports that his inspiration to write it was my book, The Summer of 1787, The Men Who Invented the Constitution. What he writes is…
Read MoreVirginia Festival of the Book
At noon on Saturday, I’ll be in at the university book store Charlottesville for the Virginia Festival of the Book, on a panel titled “American History: Our Government at Work.” I’ll be talking about the first presidential impeachment, based on my book Impeached. My co-panelists will be: Brian Balogh, of UVA, author of Government Out of Sight, The…
Read MorePulitzer Biography Crashes Through
The Washington Post today carries a terrific review of the new biography of Joseph Pulitzer by my friend, James McGrath Morris, a/k/a Jamie. That it’s a great book should be clear from my own review of it, posted on Amazon: “Joseph Pulitzer’s story is a classic American rags-to-riches-to-sellout saga. A Jewish immigrant from Hungary, Pulitzer…
Read MoreBurr and Jeremy Bentham
After his plans for insurrection in the Mississippi Valley and Mexico came to ashes, and after winning acquittal on treason charges in 1807, Aaron Burr traveled to Britain to secure support for the liberation of Spanish colonies in America. He quickly formed a close friendship of political philosopher Jeremy Bentham, staying at one or another of Bentham’s homes for weeks at…
Read MoreJames Wilson's Draft
I have been tickled by the recent identification of records of James Wilson at the Historical Society of Pennsvlvania as an early draft of the Constitution prepared during the Constitutional Convention in the Summer of 1787. I think the find is slightly less electrifying than the initial ballyhoo suggests, but it’s still a great thing. …
Read MoreTreason, American Style
Nattering on about Aaron Burr’s 1807 treason trial this week, I was brought up short by a very simple question: How many treason trials have there been in the United States? I resolved to investigate the question, which yielded the following. The Framers of the Constitution mistrusted treason prosecutions, seeing them as an easily abused tool of political…
Read MoreYou Never Know
So this reporter from the Washington Times — yes, the Moonie newspaper — makes a connection between the deals made for Senate votes on health care reform and those made for votes in the Andrew Johnson impeachment trial in 1868. And he cites my book, in an article on Christmas Eve. What a world!…
Read MoreBurr on James Monroe
Aaron Burr virtually never spoke ill of others. That trait may partly explain the deep anger that drove him to challenge Alexander Hamilton to their famous duel in 1804 after Hamilton had slandered him for more than a decade. Nevertheless, there was one notable exception to Burr’s practice: his explosive denunciation (in private correspondence with his son-in-law) of James Monroe,…
Read MoreBurr's Wisdom
In 1795, Burr advised his daughter Theodosia to retain her serenity at all costs. If only he had followed his own advice nine years later when he challenged Alexander Hamilton to a duel! Receive with calmness ever reproof, whether made kindly or unkindly, whether just or unjust. Consider within yourself whether there has been no cause…
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