Is Originalism Bullshit?
Serious Law Journal article that first defines Bullshit, then examines its use in legal arguments. Turns out, that yes, it is bullshit
Unruly Americans in the Revolution | AP US History Study Guide from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Woody Holton article regarding the efforts to incorporate the experience of "common" people in the history of the United States. Teachers and advanced students should read this to better understand how history of these periods is changing as a result of these efforts. The easy access to searchable databases of primary source documents will make this process easier and easier for historians trying to get a better understanding fo the past. This could be used as instructional resources in that reading it will give background to the some events of the Revolution and the early US
William Hogeland responds to Martha Nussbaum - Boston Review
This essay is only for teachers to read, and perhaps, refer to with students to illustrate how historians argue with each other. Fans of Hamilton should skim through this as well, to see how serious historians engage what Hogeland refers to as "Miranda's Hamilton". That Hamilton, alongside "Cernow's Hamilton" and an historical Hamilton all exist, side-by-side
Culture, Privacy, and Morality, 1 of 2 (Jeffrey Poelvoorde) on Vimeo
This is video lecture focusing on the right to privacy delivered by a professor as part of the Teaching American History program offered through the National Endowment for the Humanities
Becoming America: The Constitutional Convention of 1787 | Center Public Policy | Concordia University Irvine
Teachers would find it difficult to invest the time necessary to wade through Madison's notes to get an understanding of the daily events and arguments of the Constitutional Convention. This daily summary of events is much easier to read. Teachers skimming through this collection and perhaps reading three to five different days would realize how little of the past they actually teach - and how much of it changes when squeezed through the tiny window of instructional time available to them
Alien and Sedition Acts - Constitutional Rights Foundation
Teachers could grab a couple sentences from the CFR's description of the Alien and Sedition Acts and place them alongside another description and see clearly how the CFR supports the idea that these laws restricting free speech were proper and lawful
Why “The Framers Never Intended” Is Garbage - by Lindsay Chervinsky - Imperfect Union
Title does the justice to the essay and worth a quick look when teachers are confronted with the statement. It would be an interesting for teachers to discuss whether this should be assigned to students.
First, you can ask what the founders intended if you are exploring how those expectations immediately met with resistance and evolved once they took office. Second, you can ask what the founders intended to understand what people were thinking <em>at that time</em>. Any attempt to apply 18th century ideology or values to the 21st century is inherently problematic.
The Founders almost never agreed. On anything
If<em> </em>the Founders did agree on one thing, it was that they were flawed humans, and their creations were imperfect.
We live in a wildly different world.
The Rhode Island State Referendum on the Constitution – Center for the Study of the American Constitution – UW–Madison
Rhode Island was the only state to have a statewide vote for the Constitution among the people, rather than a convention. The people voted the Constitution down - by more than three to one
Sensing that a large majority of Rhode Islanders opposed the Constitution, Antifederalists did not want to risk considering the Constitution in a convention where Federalists might eke out ratification through skullduggery, as was seemingly done in Massachusetts on 6 February
Bernstein on Maier, 'Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788' | H-Net
Book review that exposes the vibrant debate in the states surrounding the ratification of the Constitution. These were the first debates over federal power that have continued to this day, yet they are ignored by the taught narrative canon. Teachers should learn this history an replace the memorization of the preamble and instead craft lessons that look into what "We the People" were actually arguing about
Pauline Maier, the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of History at MIT
Throughout, she makes sure to highlight not just the “usual suspects” of ratification history, but also many lesser players, showing that the argument over the Constitution burst the bounds of the category of first-rank founding fathers to include a wide array of ordinary Americans who, though sometimes expressing their sense of being daunted by the importance of the occasion and the great names dominating the process, more than held their own.
Thomas Bourne, a Massachusetts man who had been chosen as a delegate to the state’s ratifying convention by his fellow townsmen in Sandwich, but who resigned when they sought to bind their delegates by instructions to vote against the Constitution: “To place myself in a situation where conviction could be followed only by bigotted persistence in errour would be extremely disagreeable to me. Under the restrictions with which your delegates are fettered, the greatest ideot might answer your purpose as well, as the greatest man”
It is not hyperbole but fact that Maier’s book is the first truly comprehensive history of the Constitution’s ratification ever attempted.
Not only did it take place within the political systems of all thirteen states--with each state authorizing the election of a ratifying convention, conducting the election, and then convening the convention--but these formal political processes also were enveloped by a larger, informal process of debate and discussion unfolding within each state. Even more important, yet even harder to capture, was that these informal debates and discussions overflowed state boundaries, merging into what one contemporary called “the great national discussion.”[4] For the first time in American history, the people of all the states were arguing about, deliberating, and deciding on the same vital political choice--whether to adopt or reject the proposed Constitution. Not only did this shared national discussion help to draw citizens of the states together as Americans facing a common choice and defining a common political identity--it also was the origin of American constitutional discourse, that shared conversation about the Constitution, its origins, meaning, and goals that has persisted from that day to the present.
THis is entirely absent from the taught narrative canon - it does not even merit a single bullet point