U.S. History
Amendment Fetish: The Seventeenth Amendment
Adopted in 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment changed the way American choose their senators. Until then, each state legislature selected that state’s two senators for six-year terms. After 1913, the voters have chosen senators in elections. Repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment is a centerpiece of the state’s rights push behind the Tea Party movement and its close…
Read MoreThe Amendment Fetish: The Problem of the States
The swelling Tea Party movement embodies a fascinating contradiction. Its leaders profess a near-religious awe for the U.S. Constitution. This has led to stunts like the reading of the Constitution on the floor of the House of Representatives. Should it also lead to greater sales for The Summer of 1787, I will be hard-pressed to complain. …
Read MoreAaron Burr Leaves the Senate
The Washington Post ran a piece on Saturday about how current senators ignore the deeply-felt farewell addresses of their departing colleagues. Having just completed my manuscript about Aaron Burr’s Western expedition, which will be published next fall — American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America — I was reminded of Burr’s emotional departure from the Senate in…
Read MoreProfessor Wood Challenges His Colleagues
In his rave review of the new biography of George Washington by Ron Chernow, Gordon Wood, now an emeritus professor at Brown University, gives (polite) vent to his frustration with his fellow academic historians. The history professoriate, he explains in the upcoming issue of the New York Review of Books, increasingly writes for itself, and…
Read More"The Summer of 1787" and the Middle Kingdom
The capitalist tilt in China continues! ANA Beijing has agreed to publish The Summer of 1787 in a Chinese language edition. Though I am optimistic that this development presages a new dawn of freedom and democracy in the Far East, candor compels me to disclose that the initial print run will only be 3,000 volumes. …
Read MoreAre You Ready for Some Sesquicentennial?
It may end up seeming as long as the Civil War itself. We are warming up for the extended observance of the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States. (“Celebration” seems the wrong word when talking of an event that killed 600,000 Americans.) Today my gastroenterologist — yes, I have one, don’t you? — engaged me in…
Read MoreTeddy the Historian-President
Books about Theodore Roosevelt are booming these days, including the third volume of Edmund Morris’ biography, the immense treatment of Roosevelt’s conservation record by Douglas Brinkley, and a volume (forthcoming at an undetermined date) from Doris Kearns Goodwin. Indeed, in May Smithsonian Press issued a heavily edited version of TR’s own History of the United States. Roosevelt, as the…
Read MoreHistorians at the Helm
As I read (really, listened to as a book-on-CD) a recent short biography of Winston Churchill by Paul Johnson, I found myself thinking about the two historian-leaders of the modern era in the West — Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt. Both were remarkable leaders and remarkable historians. Churchill’s lifelong output of the written word was, according…
Read MoreJudge Porteous in Trouble
I just wrote about the final witness in the Senate committee proceedings for the impeachment of Judge G. Thomas Porteous of New Orleans. Not a good way for the judge to end his presentation.
Read MoreNot for 21 years
On Monday morning, September 13, the Senate Impeachment Trial Committee is supposed to begin its evidentiary hearing about whether to remove District Judge G. Thomas Porteous from office. It is 21 years since the last impeachment trial before a Senate committee, for which I was the lead defense lawyer. It involved Judge Walter L. Nixon, Jr. of…
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