Notes on Contemporary History -- Abroad & at Home
Max Boot and Josh Marshall debate the commitment of American troops to Iraq for many decades. Is Iraq like Germany or Japan? Like Korea? Like Viet Nam?
In Barbara Goldsmith,"Message to All Whining Female Democrats: Hillary's Out. Get Over It," wowOwow, 26 June, the prominent historian and Hillary Clinton supporter calls for unity.
By a vote of five to four in District of Columbia, et al., v. Dick Anthony Heller, the United States Supreme Court yesterday found a DC law banning private gun ownership unconstitutional. Justice Scalia's opinion for the majority and Justice Stevens's opinion for the minority are here. (The Court, the decision, The Volokh Conspiracy and historical scholarship continued below the fold)
At The Volokh Conspiracy, there's considerable admiration for the historical scholarship in these and other recent Court opinions."Consider, by contrast, the Supreme Court's use of history when it was issuing some of the most consequential decisions in its history," writes David Bernstein,
those requiring that every state reapportion each legislative house on one person, one vote principles. In Gray v. Sanders (1963), Justice William O. Douglas wrote, without further elaboration, that the political philosophy of"the Gettysburg Address, Declaration of Independence, 15th, 17th, and 19th Amendments 'can mean only one thing–one person, one vote.'" Never mind that a close reading of all or any of those writings suggests that they don't have anything at all to say about whether one-person, one-vote is a required, or even the best, way to apportion legislatures. This casual misuse of history not only failed to offend the Court, it was quoted favorably by Chief Justice Earl Warren the following year in Reynolds v. Sims.
Fair enough. Point scored.
The historians' brief in the case was signed by Colorado's Fred Anderson, Carol Berkin of CUNY, Ohio State's Saul Cornell, Paul Finkelman of Albany Law School, Don Higginbotham of UNC, Chapel Hill, Princeton's Stanley Katz, David Konig of Washington University, St. Louis, MIT's Pauline Meier, Chicago's William J. Novak, Virginia's Peter Onuf, Stanford's Jack Rakove, Lois Schwoerer of George Washington, Oklahoma's Robert Shalhope, Michigan's John Shy, and Alan Taylor of UC, Davis. At the Volokh Conspiracy, Jim Lindgren points out that was a strong influence in Justice Stevens's opinion for the Court's minority."... unduly influenced ..." is Lindgren's wording. Admiration for historical scholarship is fleeting, when you disagree with it.