Regarding Eugene Volokh’s post below about an NYU L. Rev. article, “The People” of the Second Amendment: Citizenship and the Right To Bear Arms. I just scanned the article, and there appears to be only a single footnote which directly cites any state statutes from before 1800. Note 125, accurately cites standard statutory compilations from […]
Archive | History
The original meaning of the 14th Amendment regarding interracial marriage
By David Kopel on December 5, 2011 5:38 pm in Anti-Semitism, Congress, Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Federalism, First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, History, Racism, Supreme Court
Over at Balkinization, Andrew Koppelman (Northwestern) has an interesting and thoughtful post on the state of originalism. Synthesizing analysis by Jamal Greene and Jack Balkin, Koppelman writes, “Originalism is fundamentally about a narrative of rhetorical self-identification with the achievements of a founding historical moment. That is the real basis of its power. An originalist argument […]
Don’t Know Much About History
From the first sentence about World War II in All About World History (1999), a history book for children: In 1939, Hitler (see below) sent armies to invade Czechoslovakia and Poland; Britain, France, and Russia decided to help the Czech and Polish people defend their lands. I did not know that! In fact, I still […]
Why Yankee Doodle called it “macaroni”
The question has bothered me for decades. We sang “Yankee Doodle” plenty of times at school, but nobody seemed to wonder why he would say that “a feather in his cap” was “macaroni.” At last, I found the answer, in Thomas Wright’s book “Caricature History of the Georges” (1860), which examines political and social satire […]
Bleg: Recommended US history book for Con Law I?
Next semester I will teaching the Constitutional Law I class at Denver University. It’s the standard class that almost all 2d or 3d semester law students must take at all law schools: This required introductory course examines the role of the United States Supreme Court and, in particular, the Court’s power in exercising judicial review […]
President: “I do not believe in the Divinity of Christ.”
The President also said that he did not believe “in the literal truth of the creed as it is recited in the orthodox evangelical churches.” He did, however, believe that Jesus had set forth an outstanding system of moral precepts. Although the general views above were shared by Thomas Jefferson, the President quoted above was William Howard […]
Who wants to provoke a constitutional crisis over abortion?
Today South Carolina Republican Senator Jim Demint hosted a forum at which five Republican presidential candidates spoke. The transcript is here. Each candidate appeared one at a time, and the format allowed for in-depth questions and answers. Among the questioners was Princeton University’s Robert George. Prof. George asked each candidate if he or she would support […]
The rise and fall of the Second Amendment “collective right”
By David Kopel on September 5, 2011 3:38 pm in Constitutional History, Constitutional Law, Guns, History, Militia, Supreme Court
My recent article for America’s 1st Freedom traces the rise and fall of the theory that the Second Amendment is not an individual right, but instead is a “collective right,” which, like “collective property” in a communist country, supposedly belongs to everyone collectively, but in fact belongs to no-one. The theory was created by a […]
Remember America’s Labor Heroes
This essay, which I wrote in 2000, celebrates the brave men and women of the Colorado labor movement, who in the coal fields of southern Colorado early in the 20th century, stood up against murderous company goons and against the soldiers of the Colorado National Guard who perverted their organization. Labor Day is a day to remember that labor […]
Reagan’s infamous speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi
By David Kopel on August 16, 2011 6:18 am in Elections, History, Housing, Political Ignorance, Racism, Tenth Amendment
In 1980, one of the major party presidential nominees opened his general election by delivering a speech in a small town in the Deep South that just by coincidence happened to be the national headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan. That same candidate had previously complained about federal housing policies which attempted “to inject black […]
A threepeat for the Emmy Awards!
The annual “time machine” episode of Colorado Inside-Out garners a threepeat, winning the best documentary award for the third year in a row, from the Heartland Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. This year’s win is also a Triple Crown, with Emmy awards for best sound, and best program. Watch the […]
Jews, Labor Laws, and Poland before World War II
Let’s say I wrote a book that had the following thesis: (a) Governments tend to favor those with political power; (b) before World War II, Jews in Poland had little political power; and (c) therefore, various labor regulations enacted in Poland between 1920 and 1938, tended at best not to take the interests of Jews […]
My Recent Posts Over at the Legal History Blog
where I am guest-blogging. Old Myths Die Hard (Long after historians debunked the notion that the Supreme Court’s liberty of contract jurisprudence arose from Social Darwinism, this notion continues to appear in history books as fact.) On a Certain Type of Historical Error (Historians reading present-day political alignments into the the past, and making assertions […]
Today in history: “Juden…waffen!”
From my article Armed Resistance to the Holocaust, 19 J. on Firearms & Public Policy 144 (2007). (For Polish translation click here). On January 18, 1943, the Germans rounded up seven thousand Jews and sent them to the extermination camp at Treblinka; they killed six hundred more Jews right in Warsaw. But on that day, […]
Rep. Harold Volkmer, R.I.P.
There have been thousands of men and women who have been elected to the United States Congress, but only a few of them can be remembered for leading the enactment of major reforms to safeguard constitutional rights. Among these giants are Rep. John Bingham and Sen. Jacob Howard, the lead sponsors of the 14th Amendment […]