The spirit and reasoning of the majority in Trump v. U.S. immunity case evokes the worst of post-Civil War jurisprudence.
Life in Brooklyn
What was the Civil War about? In a word, slavery. The driving force in American politics in the decades after the American Revolution was the rise of an arrogant, ruthless, parasitic oligarchy in the South, built on God-ordained economic inequality.
The simple reality is that the future of American democracy is as much on the line now as it was in 1866. That was lost in yesterday’s arguments, but should have been central to them.
If the court does not “honour the original meaning of the 14th amendment and disqualify Donald Trump,” an eminent historian writes, “it will trash the constitutional defense of democracy designed following slavery’s abolition”
Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Jefferson Cowie on the deep, twisted roots of American oppression
The 1870s laws passed by the Reconstruction Congress to enforce 14th Amendment rights and to protect Black voters, ignored for decades, are now being used against Trump.
The most important of all indictments against the former president: openly and long-time racist businessman and politician being brought up on federal charges by a very powerful civil rights enforcement tool created during the Reconstruction years.
The Supreme Court ruled race-based college admissions are unlawful, ending affirmative action programs at colleges. In her dissent, Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pulled no punches calling the ruling “let-them-eat-cake obliviousness.”
This book covers more than two centuries of American history, seeking to explain the evolution and enduring power of a racially inflected understanding of freedom.
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