Archive for September 2011
Burr's Boats, Part II
When Aaron Burr left the office of vice president in March 1805, his future was clouded. President Jefferson had dropped him from the Republican ticket the year before, then Burr lost a race for governor of New York. Winning his famous duel with Alexander Hamilton, former Secretary of the Treasury, landed Burr under indictment for…
Read MoreBurr's Boats, Part I
Most of Cincinnati’s thousand citizens lined the banks of the Ohio River on April 27, 1801, to watch one of the wonders of the age. A great new sailing ship, St. Clair, was passing downriver from Marietta for its maiden voyage in the Gulf of Mexico. Its journey would fire the imaginations of many men,…
Read MoreMeeting McCullough
Last Tuesday night, I attended a lecture on the Constitution by David McCullough at the Capitol Visitors Center. (He’s the one on the right in the photo.) The event was sponsored by The Constitutional Sources Project, an online site that aims to make available all the relevant information about the drafting and ratification of the…
Read MoreThe Lesson of Aaron Burr to the President: Beware of Nonpartisanship!
On this 175th anniversary of the death of Aaron Burr, I have an item up on Huffington Post questioning whether Americans really want nonpartisanship. That certainly was not Burr’s experience! (Shooting Hamilton also did not help.)
Read MoreNuremburg War Crimes Trials
John Q. Barrett is a law professor at St. John’s in New York and a scholar of Justice Robert Jackson (pictured below). He produces periodic e-mails about Justice Jackson that are often fascinating. His most recent message deals with Jackson’s exchange with Judge Charles Wyzanski over the legitimacy of the Nuremburg trials of Nazi leaders…
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