law — Bunk History

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1850s engraving of the Boston Massacre

Black Lives and the Boston Massacre

John Adams’s famous defense of the British may not be, as we’ve understood it, an expression of principle and the rule of law.

by Farah Peterson via The American Scholar on December 3, 2018

Lithograph of Thomas Jefferson

Hero or Villain, Both and Neither: Appraising Thomas Jefferson, 200 Years Later

A Pulitzer historian assesses what we are to make of UVA’s founder, 200 years hence.

by Alan Taylor via Virginia Magazine on November 20, 2018

Massachusetts State House

Civil Rights Without the Supreme Court

Losing the support of the Supreme Court is disappointing, but it need not be the death knell of progress.

by Millington Bergeson-Lockwood via We're History on November 7, 2018

Arthur Mervin, Bankrupt

An 18th-century novel explores how American society handles capitalism's collateral damage — and who deserves a second chance.

by Katherine Gaudet via Commonplace on January 1, 2018

What America Taught the Nazis

In the 1930s, the Germans were fascinated by the global leader in legal racism—the United States.

by Ira Katznelson via The Atlantic on October 5, 2017

Lithograph book illustration of pirates of America.

A Treasure Trove of Trials

This collection of piracy trials comprises documents that were published before 1923 and that are part of the holdings of the Law Library of Congress.

by Francisco Macías via Library of Congress on September 5, 2017

Laundered Violence

Law and protest in Durham, North Carolina.

by Jedediah Britton-Purdy via n+1 on August 23, 2017

What the Nazis Learned from America

Rigid racial codes in the early 20th century gained the admiration not only of many American elites, but also of Nazi Germany.

by Jessica Blatt via Public Books on July 6, 2017

Constitutional Originalism and History

Does the most historically minded school of constitutional law push history aside?

by Jonathan Gienapp via Process: A Blog for American History on March 20, 2017

Two members of a teenage street gang are taken into the 9th Precinct police station after their arrest in New York City.

The Forgotten Law That Gave Police Nearly Unlimited Power

The vagrancy law regime regulated so much more than what is generally considered “vagrancy.”

by Risa Goluboff via TIME on February 1, 2016

The Awakening of Thurgood Marshall

The case he didn’t expect to lose. And why it mattered that he did.

by Gilbert King via The Marshall Project on November 20, 2014

Objection

Clarence Darrow’s unfinished work.

by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on May 23, 2011

Dead or Alive: Originalism as Popular Constitutionalism in Heller

Was the 2008 Heller decision a victory for originalism or a living Constitution?

by Reva B. Siegel via Yale Faculty Scholarship Series on January 1, 2008

View of Boston in 1730.

Civil Unions in the City on a Hill: The Real Legacy of "Boston Judges"

For the English Puritans who founded Massachusetts in 1630, marriage was a civil union, a contract, not a sacred rite.

by Mark A. Peterson via Commonplace on April 2, 2004

National Civil Rights Museum recreation of King's Birmingham jail cell.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 letter written from prison remains one of his most famous works.

by Martin Luther King Jr. via University of Pennsylvania on April 16, 1963

Image of the Preamble: We The People

On Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation

People continue to interpret the U.S. Constitution in different ways. One way is an originalist framework that favors the Founding Father's intent in 1787.

by Steven Calabresi via The National Constitution Center

A Supreme Court Justice Wrote the Greatest “No Kings” Essay in History

This opinion is a milestone in the rule of law and is regularly cited by conservative and liberal justices alike.

by Gerard Magliocca via Slate on July 10, 2025

Union workers hold American flags and a sign reading "No work without a fair contract."

Requiem for the Wagner Act

Signed into law 90 years ago, labor’s onetime ‘magna carta’ is now a very dead letter.

by Joseph A. McCartin via The American Prospect on July 8, 2025

Document about enslaved baby born to Priscilla.

Active Silence, Archival Presence, and An Enslaved Mother's Legal Knowledge

An enslaved woman’s refusal to name her child challenged Pennsylvania’s gradual abolition laws and left behind a rare archival trace of resistance.

by Cory James Young via The Panorama on June 30, 2025

A hand holds a US flag and a pride flag in front of the Supreme Court building in a crowd celebrating the Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

How the Supreme Court Ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges Legalized Same-Sex Marriage

When Jim Obergefell and his partner John Arthur decided to marry after more than 20 years together, their home state refused to recognize same-sex marriages.

by Kit R. Roane via Retro Report on June 18, 2025

Graphic of a nickel displays the words "nullification," "compact," and "sever" on Jefferson's head.

Thomas Jefferson Would Like A Word With You

Thomas Jefferson's limited government ideal quickly conflicted with the U.S. Constitution and the dominant Federalist Party, prompting a radical proposal.

by Michael Liss via 3 Quarks Daily on June 16, 2025

Not Just the Dog-Eared Pages

Considering a novel as a whole, rather than as the sum of its parts, was an approach favored by mid-20th-century literary critics. It was also useful for fighting book bans.

by Anthony Aycock via HNN on June 3, 2025

Broadside about the Fugitive Slave law.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.

by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on May 19, 2025

Waves crashing onto the sidewalk during a King Tide in San Diego.

Property and Permanence on the California Coastline

California has long allowed an ambiguous boundary between public and private land along its coast. Climate change is testing the limits of this compromise.

by Andrew Malmuth via Places Journal on May 1, 2025

Clark Mills’s statue of Andrew Jackson, Lafayette Park, Washington D.C., circa 1910–1925

Vance’s Junk History

When Donald Trump and his followers go in search of historical forerunners to justify their regime, they turn with striking regularity to the presidency.

by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on April 25, 2025

Alleged enemy aliens on way to detention camp, Gloucester, New Jersey, 1918.

The Alien Enemies Act: Annotated

Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.

by Liz Tracey via JSTOR Daily on April 25, 2025

Drawing of the fight between two congressional representatives titled "Congressional pugilists," 1798.

Alien Enemies, Alien Friends, and the Concept of “Allegiance”

With controversy raging over the Alien Enemies Act, how should we understand the concept it invoked?

by Robert Natelson via Law & Liberty on March 24, 2025

Civil rights lawyers including Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley.

Trump's Attack on Lawyers and Law Firms Takes a Page Out of the Southern 1950s Playbook

American authoritarians fear the uniquely American power of litigation.

by Sherrilyn Ifill via Sherrilyn's Newsletter on March 24, 2025

James Madison behind a swirling pattern.

Musk’s Madisonian Insight—And Its Troubling Consequences

DOGE's seizure of government databases is not just an act of bureaucratic reorganization. It is an act of constitutional restructuring.

by Bridget Fahey via The Atlantic on March 13, 2025

Poster reading "Basta Buitres," or "Enough Vultures," calling for Argentina to unite against the United States.

How the US Courts Rewrote the Rules of International Trade

How the American legal system created an economic environment that subordinated the entire world to domestic business interests.

by Brett Christophers via The Nation on March 3, 2025

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