Two fights almost broke-out this week on Capitol Hill. You can read all about them here. The most famous fight in congressional history happened in 1856 when Preston Brooks of South Carolina caned Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in the Senate...
1850s
In 1855-1856, the Speaker of the House was decided after 133 votes
As I write, the House is completing its eighth ballot for Speaker of the House. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic candidate, continues to get a plurality of the vote. The GOP is still divided, with most Republicans behind Kevin McCarthy and...
David Blight: “Dred Scott was the point of no return”
I hope you get some time this week to read Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Blight’s piece at The New York Times Magazine, “Was the Civil War Inevitable?” Blight reflects on the 1850s, particularly the Dred Scott case, and wonders if...
Goodbye Roger Taney
Earlier this week my U.S. history survey students answered a final exam essay question on the short-term causes of the American Civil War. I haven’t graded their essays yet, but if their blue books do not contain something about Roger...
The ever-usable John Brown
Here is Yale graduate student Bennett Parten at History Today: …John Brown became an American sensation, a source of both fear and enchantment. Slaveholders reviled him; abolitionists wept for him, tolled bells in his honour and came to see him...
If American democracy is in crisis, expect calls for Supreme Court reform
Joe Biden wants to reform the Supreme Court. This kind of judicial reform also happened in the 1790s, 1850s, 1890s, 1930s, 1970s, and 2010s. Here is a taste of Syracuse University political scientist Thomas Keck‘s piece at The Washington Post:...
Putting the January 6, 2021 insurrection in historical context
Catherine Halley of JSTOR Daily offers some great resources. Here is a taste of her January 7 piece: Yesterday our friends who teach sixth grade were asking: how do I talk to my students about the insurrection that just happened...
How Abraham Lincoln challenged the power of the Supreme Court
How did Abraham Lincoln challenged a Supreme Court dominated by pro-slavery ideologues? Princeton historian Matthew Karp answers this question in his latest piece at Jacobin. Here is a taste: Across the late 1850s, Lincoln argued that “the American people,” not the Supreme...
Who freed the slaves?
Princeton historian Matt Karp talks with Jacobin magazine’s Megan Day and Micah Uetricht about his recent Catalyst essay, “The Mass Politics of Anti-Slavery.” This is a wide-ranging discussion about abolitionism, Karl Marx, Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party of the 1850s, and contemporary politics....
When a School Shooting Shifted the National Debate on Guns
Saul Cornell, the best historian on guns and the Second Amendment working today, tells us about an 1853 school shooting in Louisville, Kentucky. Here is a taste of his piece at Politico: Though little remembered now, the first high-profile school shooting...
The Author’s Corner with Adam Smith
Adam Smith is professor of history at the University College of London. This interview is based on his new book, The Stormy Present: Conservatism and the Problem of Slavery in Northern Politics, 1846–1865 (The University of North Carolina Press, 2017). JF: What led you...
From the 1850s to the 1950s in 10 Minutes
Tonight should be an interesting one for students in my Civil War America class. We are currently studying the 1850s and the political, social, cultural, economic, and racial lead-up to the Civil War. The class usually runs from 6:15-9:15pm, but...
“The Impending Crisis”
Over at Time, National Book Award winner and historian Ibram X. Kendi introduces us to Hinton Rowan Helper, the author of The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It (1857). Kendi compares the influence of Helper’s book to Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Here...
Roger Taney Apologizes to Dred Scott
Well, actually both Roger Taney and Dred Scott are dead. But this did not stop a descendant of Taney (also named Roger Taney) from apologizing to a descendant of Scott. Here is a taste of an article from The Washington Post:...
On Writing the History of the American BIble Society–Update #27
Want to get some context for this post? Click here.I covered a lot of ground in the archives yesterday. I made it to 1858 in Bible Society Record. I am struck by the way the American Bible Society remains focused on...