DOCSLIB.ORG

Henry Steele Commager As Historian and Public Intellectual[1]

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Henry Steele Commager As Historian and Public Intellectual[1] Neil Jumonville. Henry Steele Commager: Midcentury Liberalism and the History of the Present. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. xviii + 328 pp. $49.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8078-2448-1. Reviewed by R. B. Bernstein Published on H-Law (October, 1999) In December of 1998, midway through the foremost participants in that great public argu‐ House Judiciary Committee's hearings on the im‐ ment was the historian Henry Steele Commager, peachment of President Clinton, the Committee and virtually nobody questioned Commager's called as witnesses a panel of historians and legal place in the fray. Not only was Commager proba‐ scholars who sought to cast light on the history bly the most famous historian of his time; he also and purposes of the impeachment process. Mem‐ was a highly respected participant in public de‐ bers of the H-LAW community would have recog‐ bate. Indeed, his fame was rooted at least as much nized such names as Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law in his engagement with great public issues over School, Jack N. Rakove of Stanford, and Sean nearly six decades of lecturing and writing--from Wilentz of Princeton. The odd thing about this the era of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal panel, and about the other efforts of historians through the age of Ronald Reagan--as in his work and other scholars to take part in the public con‐ as a historian or as a professor. troversy about impeachment, was that they either Commager's role as a public intellectual takes seemed or were treated as being out of place. In‐ center stage in the biography under review. Its au‐ deed, in his new book on the impeachment con‐ thor, Neil Jumonville, who teaches American his‐ troversy, Judge Richard A. Posner argues that one tory at Florida State University, previously wrote lesson of the Clinton impeachment is just how un‐ Critical Crossings: The New York Intellectuals in suited historians are to offer guidance on matters Postwar America (Berkeley: University of Califor‐ of public policy.[2] nia Press, 1991), a significant examination of Twenty-five years before this puzzling "public intellectuals" and their role in public de‐ episode, the nation was roiled by another crisis bate. In his new book, Jumonville juxtaposes two posing the risk of Presidential impeachment--the worlds: "As few have been able to do in the past Watergate controversy that fnally drove Presi‐ half century, Commager brought together the two dent Richard Nixon to resign his office. One of the worlds of scholarship and public intellectual ac‐ H-Net Reviews tivity" (p. xiii). He defines these two worlds in views were innocuous and not worth the effort. sharply different terms: "... I've used the example 'There is an unvarying formula, ... and I guarantee of Commager to ask whether the intellectual life is to write an 800 word review of any book within compatible with scholarly life. Can an intellectual 12 hours.'" Jumonville continues, blending quota‐ (who writes as a partisan generalist for the wide tion and paraphrase (p. 15): public on contemporary issues) still operate as a First, from the book's dust jacket copy you scholar (who is a "neutral" archival academic who talk about the title and author. You note that the writes for his or her professional peers)?" (p. xii). book and its style are fair, "point out typographi‐ In some ways, Jumonville's sharp dichotomy cal errors at great length," discuss the bibliogra‐ makes sense--particularly when historians have phy, "noting with sorrow" its missing mono‐ come under increasing fre for writing only for graphs, and "end up saying that all students of the one another and not for the general reader, and period are under debt to the author for his piece when young historians seeking to bridge the gap of research." He assured Duus that this latter com‐ between professional and general audiences are pliment is "bunk because students of the period regularly advised not to do so, at least until they do their own research and no one else cares to have won tenure. However, Commager would read the book as it is too dull." have rejected Jumonville's dichotomy. Indeed, as Jumonville structures his book largely by ref‐ Jumonville acknowledges, Commager is notable erence to two interlocking chronologies--that of precisely because he scorned gaps separating pro‐ Commager's life and career, and that of the public fessional and general audiences and rejected the controversies and political battles in which Com‐ idea that a historian had to choose between clois‐ mager took part. He traces Commager's life from tered pursuit of scholarship and vigorous, even his birth in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 25 Octo‐ polemical discourse in the public realm. Ju‐ ber 1902, his orphaning at an early age and his monville's stark distinction between the role of struggles to put himself through the University of the historian and that of the public intellectual Chicago (where he earned the B.A., M.A., and poses problems for his attempt to understand a Ph.D.), through his teaching stints, frst at New historian who not only was also a public intellec‐ York University and then at Columbia (1936-1956) tual but saw no contradiction between those and fnally at Amherst College, which he joined in roles. 1956 and where he taught through the early Jumonville ably chronicles Commager's ca‐ 1990s, dying on 2 March 1998. reer, showing him as a man with a foot in both Jumonville weaves around the central thread worlds who seemed effortlessly to maintain his of Commager's career a rich but uneven account balance between them. He also conveys at least of Commager's participation in many pivotal con‐ some of Commager's inspiring energy, his ability troversies. He is effective on Commager's coura‐ to write vigorous yet elegant prose, his scholarly geous stand against blacklisting in the 1940s and and political enthusiasms, and his wry, sardonic 1950s, a campaign that Commager undertook at humor. In this last connection, one passage of his some personal risk but with thorough disregard book is of special relevance for the writer or read‐ for that risk. Jumonville also ably limns Com‐ er of book reviews. In 1925, the young Commager mager's other forms of political activism, includ‐ reported to his friend Hans Duus that, while so‐ ing his enthusiasm for Adlai Stevenson in the journing in Europe and paging through his host's 1950s and for John, Robert, and Edward Kennedy extensive fle of back issues of the American His‐ in the 1960s and 1970s, and his longstanding op‐ torical Review, he had realized "that all book re‐ position to the Vietnam Conflict on political and 2 H-Net Reviews constitutional grounds. He is somewhat cursory his revered senior colleague Samuel Eliot Morison as his book enters the 1970s--in particular, devot‐ and then with his protege William E. Leuchten‐ ing surprisingly little attention to Commager's ex‐ burg.[9] And yet Jumonville mostly limits his com‐ tensive activism during the Watergate crisis of ments on these books to contemporary reviewers' 1973-1974 and his vigorous criticism of the Rea‐ assessments, with little sustained effort to inte‐ gan Administration throughout the 1980s.[3] grate them into an interpretation of Commager's Jumonville presents his biography of Com‐ evolving work as a historian or his place in the mager as an extended meditation on the clashing historiography of the felds to which he contrib‐ roles of the historian and the public intellectual. uted. Jumonville notes Commager's admiration Unfortunately, the book's focus means that it lacks for Vernon L. Parrington, whose Main Currents in or slights discussion of other questions and topics American Thought was both the inspiration and equally important to understanding Commager's the model for The American Mind and, to a lesser role in the intellectual life of his time--in particu‐ degree, The Empire of Reason.[10] But Ju‐ lar, his work as a historian and the relationship monville's specific attempt to situate Commager between his status as a professional historian and in the currents of American historiography by ref‐ his enthusiastic engagement in public debate. erence to Parrington is the exception rather than the rule. First, Jumonville brackets Commager with other notable historians who were also public in‐ Many readers of H-LAW may know Com‐ tellectuals--principally Commager's longtime mager's scholarship best through his coeditorship friend and Columbiaccolleague Allan Nevins, as with the late Richard B. Morris of the New Ameri‐ well as Richard Hofstadter (also of Columbia) and can Nation series, which eventually produced Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (of Harvard and later of more than forty volumes covering the span of the CUNY Graduate School). All these men func‐ American history from the earliest civilizations in tion as prisms through whom Jumonville can re‐ America to the "unraveling of America" in the count and analyze the roles of historians as public 1960s and the emergence of the "New South" be‐ intellectuals. Indeed, sometimes Jumonville focus‐ tween the 1950s and the 1990s.[11] (Although es so much on Nevins or on Hofstadter that Com‐ Morris was a close friend and a valued Columbia mager vanishes from his own biography for pages colleague of Commager's, Morris appears rarely at a time. in this biography--perhaps because he was more firmly planted than Commager or Nevins or Hofs‐ A second, more important gap is Jumonville's tadter on the "scholarly" side of Jumonville's di‐ apparent reluctance to engage much of Com‐ vide.) Jumonville does not address the signifi‐ mager's work as a historian.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Proceedings 207
    1939.] Proceedings 207 PROCEEDINGS ANNUAL MEETING OP THE SOCIETY, OCTOBER 18, 1939, AT THE LIBEARY OF THE SOCIETY, WORCESTER Annual Meeting of the Anierican Antiquarian -1 Society was held at the Library of the Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, October 18, 1939, at 10.45 a.m. The meeting was called to order by the first Vice-president, Charles Henry Taylor. The following members of the Society were present : George Henry Haynes, George Parker Winship, Clar- ence Saunders Brigham, Samuel Bayard Woodward, George Hubbard Blakeslee, William Vail Kellen, Shepherd Knapp, Albert Carlos Bates, Charles Henry Taylor, Herbert Edwin Lombard, Lawrence Waters Jenkins, John Woodbury, Robert Kendall Shaw, Fred Norris Robinson, Chandler BuUockj Charles Eliot Goodspeed, Gardner Weld Allen, George Ichabod Rockwood, Wallace Walter Atwood, Matt Bushneil Jones, Daniel Waldo Lincoln, Charles Alpheus Place, George Francis Booth, Paul Beagary Morgan, Russell Sturgis Paine, Thomas James Holmes, James Melville Hunnewell, Abraham S. Wolf Rosenbach, George Crompton, Stephen Willard Phillips, Edward Tucker- man Esty, Reginald Washburn, Wilbur Macey Stone, Robert William Glenroie Vail, Glenn Tilley Morse, Charles Taylor Tatman, Samuel Flagg Bemis, Thomas Winthrop Streeter, William Irving Clark, Frederick Edward Brasch, George Gregerson Wolkins, Howard Corning, Henry Wilder Foote, Allyn Bailey Forbes, Philip Ainsworth Means, Hermann Frederick Clarke, Francis Henshaw Dewey, Lathrop Colgate Harper, 208 American Antiquarian Society [Oct., Augustus Peabody Loring, Jr., James Duncan Phillips, Clifford Kenyon Shipton, Alexander Hamilton Bullock, Theron Johnson Damon, Albert White Rice, Fred- erick Lewis Weis, Donald McKay Frost, Harry- Andrew Wright. It was voted to dispense with the reading of the records of the last meeting. The report of the Council of the Society was presented by the Director, Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Bernstein on Jumonville, 'Henry Steele Commager: Midcentury Liberalism and the History of the Present'
    H-Law Bernstein on Jumonville, 'Henry Steele Commager: Midcentury Liberalism and the History of the Present' Review published on Friday, October 1, 1999 Neil Jumonville. Henry Steele Commager: Midcentury Liberalism and the History of the Present. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. xviii + 328 pp. $49.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8078-2448-1. Reviewed by R. B. Bernstein (New York Law School) Published on H-Law (October, 1999) Scholarship and Engagement: Henry Steele Commager as Historian and Public Intellectual[1] In December of 1998, midway through the House Judiciary Committee's hearings on the impeachment of President Clinton, the Committee called as witnesses a panel of historians and legal scholars who sought to cast light on the history and purposes of the impeachment process. Members of the H-LAW community would have recognized such names as Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School, Jack N. Rakove of Stanford, and Sean Wilentz of Princeton. The odd thing about this panel, and about the other efforts of historians and other scholars to take part in the public controversy about impeachment, was that they either seemed or were treated as being out of place. Indeed, in his new book on the impeachment controversy, Judge Richard A. Posner argues that one lesson of the Clinton impeachment is just how unsuited historians are to offer guidance on matters of public policy.[2] Twenty-five years before this puzzling episode, the nation was roiled by another crisis posing the risk of Presidential impeachment--the Watergate controversy that finally drove President Richard Nixon to resign his office.
    [Show full text]
  • University Microfilms Copyright 1984 by Mitchell, Reavis Lee, Jr. All
    8404787 Mitchell, Reavis Lee, Jr. BLACKS IN AMERICAN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS: A STUDY OF SELECTED THEMES IN POST-1900 COLLEGE LEVEL SURVEYS Middle Tennessee State University D.A. 1983 University Microfilms Internet ion elæ o N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Copyright 1984 by Mitchell, Reavis Lee, Jr. All Rights Reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PLEASE NOTE: In all cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available copy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a check mark V 1. Glossy photographs or pages. 2. Colored illustrations, paper or print_____ 3. Photographs with dark background_____ 4. Illustrations are poor copy______ 5. Pages with black marks, not original copy_ 6. Print shows through as there is text on both sides of page. 7. Indistinct, broken or small print on several pages______ 8. Print exceeds margin requirements______ 9. Tightly bound copy with print lost in spine______ 10. Computer printout pages with indistinct print. 11. Page(s)____________ lacking when material received, and not available from school or author. 12. Page(s) 18 seem to be missing in numbering only as text follows. 13. Two pages numbered _______iq . Text follows. 14. Curling and wrinkled pages______ 15. Other ________ University Microfilms International Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BLACKS IN AMERICAN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS: A STUDY OF SELECTED THEMES IN POST-190 0 COLLEGE LEVEL SURVEYS Reavis Lee Mitchell, Jr. A dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of Middle Tennessee State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Arts December, 1983 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.
    [Show full text]
  • I^Igtorical ^Siisociation
    American i^igtorical ^siisociation SEVENTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING NEW YORK HEADQUARTERS: HOTEL STATLER DECEMBER 28, 29, 30 Bring this program with you Extra copies 25 cents Please be certain to visit the hook exhibits The Culture of Contemporary Canada Edited by JULIAN PARK, Professor of European History and International Relations at the University of Buffalo THESE 12 objective essays comprise a lively evaluation of the young culture of Canada. Closely and realistically examined are literature, art, music, the press, theater, education, science, philosophy, the social sci ences, literary scholarship, and French-Canadian culture. The authors, specialists in their fields, point out the efforts being made to improve and consolidate Canada's culture. 419 Pages. Illus. $5.75 The American Way By DEXTER PERKINS, John L. Senior Professor in American Civilization, Cornell University PAST and contemporary aspects of American political thinking are illuminated by these informal but informative essays. Professor Perkins examines the nature and contributions of four political groups—con servatives, liberals, radicals, and socialists, pointing out that the continu ance of healthy, active moderation in American politics depends on the presence of their ideas. 148 Pages. $2.75 A Short History of New Yorh State By DAVID M.ELLIS, James A. Frost, Harold C. Syrett, Harry J. Carman HERE in one readable volume is concise but complete coverage of New York's complicated history from 1609 to the present. In tracing the state's transformation from a predominantly agricultural land into a rich industrial empire, four distinguished historians have drawn a full pic ture of political, economic, social, and cultural developments, giving generous attention to the important period after 1865.
    [Show full text]
  • Department of History University of New Hampshire
    DRAFT DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE History 939 Professor Eliga Gould Fall 2015 Office: Horton 423B T 8:40-9:30 Phone: 862-3012 Horton 422 E-mail: [email protected] Office Hours: T 9:30-11:30 and by appointment Readings in Early American History Assigned Readings. (Unless otherwise noted, all titles are available at the University Bookstore and the Durham Book Exchange.) Bailyn, Bernard. Atlantic History: Concept and Contours (2005) Berlin, Ira. Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (2000). Bushman, Richard. The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (1992). Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England (1983) Gould, Eliga H. Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire (2012) Greene, Jack P., and Philip D. Morgan. Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (2008). Hall, David D. Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (1989). Johnson, Walter. River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (2013). Lepler, Jessica. The Many Panics of 1837: People, Politics, and the Creation of a Transatlantic Financial Crisis (2013). McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988). Morgan, Edmund S. and Helen M. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution (1953). Richter, Daniel. Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (2001). Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher. A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (1990). Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution (1993).
    [Show full text]
  • University of Oklahoma Libraries Western History Collections Ralph
    University of Oklahoma Libraries Western History Collections Ralph H. Records Collection Records, Ralph Hayden. Papers, 1871–1968. 2 feet. Professor. Magazine and journal articles (1946–1968) regarding historiography, along with a typewritten manuscript (1871–1899) by L. S. Records, entitled “The Recollections of a Cowboy of the Seventies and Eighties,” regarding the lives of cowboys and ranchers in frontier-era Kansas and in the Cherokee Strip of Oklahoma Territory, including a detailed account of Records’s participation in the land run of 1893. ___________________ Box 1 Folder 1: Beyond The American Revolutionary War, articles and excerpts from the following: Wilbur C. Abbott, Charles Francis Adams, Randolph Greenfields Adams, Charles M. Andrews, T. Jefferson Coolidge, Jr., Thomas Anburey, Clarence Walroth Alvord, C.E. Ayres, Robert E. Brown, Fred C. Bruhns, Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Lotus Belcher, Henry Belcher, Adolph B. Benson, S.L. Blake, Charles Knowles Bolton, Catherine Drinker Bowen, Julian P. Boyd, Carl and Jessica Bridenbaugh, Sanborn C. Brown, William Hand Browne, Jane Bryce, Edmund C. Burnett, Alice M. Baldwin, Viola F. Barnes, Jacques Barzun, Carl Lotus Becker, Ruth Benedict, Charles Borgeaud, Crane Brinton, Roger Butterfield, Edwin L. Bynner, Carl Bridenbaugh Folder 2: Douglas Campbell, A.F. Pollard, G.G. Coulton, Clarence Edwin Carter, Harry J. Armen and Rexford G. Tugwell, Edward S. Corwin, R. Coupland, Earl of Cromer, Harr Alonzo Cushing, Marquis De Shastelluz, Zechariah Chafee, Jr. Mellen Chamberlain, Dora Mae Clark, Felix S. Cohen, Verner W. Crane, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Cromwell, Arthur yon Cross, Nellis M. Crouso, Russell Davenport Wallace Evan Daview, Katherine B.
    [Show full text]
  • American Civil Associations and the Growth of American Government: an Appraisal of Alexis De Tocqueville’S Democracy in America (1835-1840) Applied to Franklin D
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2017 American Civil Associations and the Growth of American Government: An Appraisal of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835-1840) Applied to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and the Post-World War II Welfare State John P. Varacalli The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1828 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] AMERICAN CIVIL ASSOCIATIONS AND THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT: AN APPRAISAL OF ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE’S DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA (1835- 1840) APPLIED TO FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’S NEW DEAL AND THE POST-WORLD WAR II WELFARE STATE by JOHN P. VARACALLI A master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Program in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York 2017 © 2017 JOHN P. VARACALLI All Rights Reserved ii American Civil Associations and the Growth of American Government: An Appraisal of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835-1840) Applied to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Post World War II Welfare State by John P. Varacalli The manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in satisfaction of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts ______________________ __________________________________________ Date David Gordon Thesis Advisor ______________________ __________________________________________ Date Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis Acting Executive Officer THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT American Civil Associations and the Growth of American Government: An Appraisal of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835-1840) Applied to Franklin D.
    [Show full text]
  • 20 American Antiquarian Society Lications of American Writers. One
    20 American Antiquarian Society lications of American writers. One of his earliest catalogues was devoted to these early efforts and this has been followed at intervals by others in the same vein. This was, however, only one facet of his interests and the scholarly catalogues he published covering fiction, poetry, drama, and bibliographical works provide a valuable commentary on the history and the changing fashions of American book buying over four de- cades. The shop established on the premises at S West Forty- sixth Street in New York by Kohn and Papantonio shortly after the end of the war has become a mecca for bibliophiles from all over the United States and from foreign countries. It is not overstating the case to say that Kohn became the leading authority on first and important editions of American literature. He was an interested and active member of the American Antiquarian Society. The Society's incomparable holdings in American literature have been enriched by his counsel and his gifts. He will be sorely missed as a member, a friend, and a benefactor. C. Waller Barrett SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON Samuel Eliot Morison was born in Boston on July 9, 1887, and died there nearly eighty-nine years later on May 15, 1976. He lived most of his life at 44 Brimmer Street in Bos- ton. He graduated from Harvard in 1908, sharing a family tradition with, among others, several Samuel Eliots, Presi- dent Charles W. Eliot, Charles Eliot Norton, and Eking E. Morison. During his junior year he decided on teaching and writing history as an objective after graduation and in his twenty-fifth Harvard class report, he wrote: 'History is a hu- mane discipline that sharpens the intellect and broadens the mind, offers contacts with people, nations, and civilizations.
    [Show full text]
  • Suicide Facts Oladeinde Is a Staff Writerall for Hands Suicide Is on the Rise Nationwide
    A L p AN Stephen Murphy (left),of Boston, AMSAN Kevin Sitterson (center), of Roper, N.C., and AN Rick Martell,of Bronx, N.Y., await the launch of an F-14 Tomcat on the flight deckof USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71). e 4 24 e 6 e e Hidden secrets Operation Deliberate Force e e The holidays are a time for giving. USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) e e proves what it is made of during one of e e Make time for your shipmates- it e e could be the gift of life. the biggest military operations in Europe e e since World War 11. e e e e 6 e e 28 e e Grab those Gifts e e Merchants say thanks to those in This duty’s notso tough e e uniform. Your ID card is worth more Nine-section duty is off to a great start e e e e than you may think. and gets rave reviews aboardUSS e e Anchorage (LSD 36). e e PAGE 17 e e 10 e e The right combination 30 e e e e Norfolk hospital corpsman does studio Sailors care,do their fair share e e time at night. Seabees from CBU420 build a Habitat e e e e for Humanity house in Jacksonville, Fla. e e 12 e e e e Rhyme tyme 36 e e Nautical rhymes bring the past to Smart ideas start here e e e e everyday life. See how many you Sailors learn the ropes and get off to a e e remember.
    [Show full text]
  • Jefferson's Failed Anti-Slavery Priviso of 1784 and the Nascence of Free Soil Constitutionalism
    MERKEL_FINAL 4/3/2008 9:41:47 AM Jefferson’s Failed Anti-Slavery Proviso of 1784 and the Nascence of Free Soil Constitutionalism William G. Merkel∗ ABSTRACT Despite his severe racism and inextricable personal commit- ments to slavery, Thomas Jefferson made profoundly significant con- tributions to the rise of anti-slavery constitutionalism. This Article examines the narrowly defeated anti-slavery plank in the Territorial Governance Act drafted by Jefferson and ratified by Congress in 1784. The provision would have prohibited slavery in all new states carved out of the western territories ceded to the national government estab- lished under the Articles of Confederation. The Act set out the prin- ciple that new states would be admitted to the Union on equal terms with existing members, and provided the blueprint for the Republi- can Guarantee Clause and prohibitions against titles of nobility in the United States Constitution of 1788. The defeated anti-slavery plank inspired the anti-slavery proviso successfully passed into law with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Unlike that Ordinance’s famous anti- slavery clause, Jefferson’s defeated provision would have applied south as well as north of the Ohio River. ∗ Associate Professor of Law, Washburn University; D. Phil., University of Ox- ford, (History); J.D., Columbia University. Thanks to Sarah Barringer Gordon, Thomas Grey, and Larry Kramer for insightful comment and critique at the Yale/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum in June 2006. The paper benefited greatly from probing questions by members of the University of Kansas and Washburn Law facul- ties at faculty lunches. Colin Bonwick, Richard Carwardine, Michael Dorf, Daniel W.
    [Show full text]
  • Themes in Modern American History Tutorial Schedule
    HI2016 Themes in Modern American History Michaelmas Term, 2010 Tutorial Schedule Tutorial Assignments: Each student will be asked to make one presentation during the term. The student should choose a secondary source related to the week’s topic from a list of possibilities designated “recommended reading” (see below). He or she will offer a brief (3-5 minute) presentation on the text that illuminates the text’s main arguments and contributions to historical scholarship. No presentations will be held on week one of tutorials, but students will be expected to sign up during class for their future presentation. Readings: Please note that most required readings are available online; please use the links provided to ensure that you have the correct version of the document. All other required readings will be available in a box placed outside the history department. These photocopies are only to be borrowed and promptly returned (by the end of the day or the next morning if borrowed in the late afternoon). They are not to be kept. If students encounter trouble obtaining readings, they should email Dr. Geary at [email protected]. Week One: Puritans and Foundational American Myths (w/c 11 Oct.) Required Reading: John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (available online at http://religiousfreedom.lib.virginia.edu/sacred/charity.html) Perry Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness,” William and Mary Quarterly, 10 (Jan., 1953), 3-32 (available online at www.jstor.org) Recommended Reading: James Axtell, Natives and Newcomers John Demos, Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the culture of early New England David D. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: popular religious belief in early New England.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution of U.S. Military Policy from the Constitution to the Present
    C O R P O R A T I O N The Evolution of U.S. Military Policy from the Constitution to the Present Gian Gentile, Michael E. Linick, Michael Shurkin For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RR1759 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this publication. ISBN: 978-0-8330-9786-6 Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © Copyright 2017 RAND Corporation R® is a registered trademark. Limited Print and Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions. The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org Preface Since the earliest days of the Republic, American political and military leaders have debated and refined the national approach to providing an Army to win the nation’s independence and provide for its defense against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
    [Show full text]