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 […]
Joanne Freeman
Political thinkers weigh-in on the ousting of Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy is no longer the Speaker of the House. What happened? Politico has gathered some experts to discuss the current state of the Republican Party. Contributors include historians Mary Frances Berry, Joanne Freeman, and Joshua Zeitz. Here is Freeman: […]
Trump is indicted. Historians weigh-in.
Here is CNN: “The former president faces his first federal indictment for retention of classified documents and conspiracy with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own attorneys — a total of 37 counts.” Read an […]
Historian Joanne Freeman on the near scuffle between Mike Rogers and Matt Gaetz
Here is part of what I wrote last night after the fourteenth ballot for Speaker of the House: Before the end of the vote, McCarthy had to walk up the aisle to talk to Matt Gaetz to try to get […]
On January 6, 2021 there was violence on the House floor. Violence almost broke again on January 6, 2023
As I started this post at 11:14pm on Friday night there were still six people standing in the way of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership. They were Andy Biggs (AZ), Lauren Boebert (CO), Eli Crane (AZ), Matt Gaetz (FL), Bob Good (VA), […]
How members of Congress used violence to silence their political adversaries
Joan E. Greve of The Guardian interviews Yale historian Joanne Freeman about violence in Congress. If any of my U.S. history survey students are reading this post, this is what we talked about in class yesterday. Here is a taste […]
From the archives: “Twitter and the Historical Profession”
A reference to my article “Twitter the Historical Profession” is circulating on Twitter today. I completely forgot that I wrote this piece back in 2017 for The American Historian, the magazine of the Organization of American Historians. It seems so […]
When it comes to the Second Amendment, Matt Gaetz has no clue
Watch the Florida congressman in action at a recent rally: Actually… no. Here is Saul Cornell, our best historian of the Second Amendment, writing in 2012: The founders had a word for a bunch of farmers marching with guns without […]