“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
On July 13, 1787, the Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, one of the most important and influential acts of the early republic. It established a bill of rights years before one was added to the Constitution, and prohibited slavery in the territory...
On July 10, 1752, St. George Tucker was born. He wrote the first systematic commentary on the U.S. Constitution and was one of the most influential jurists and legal scholars during the formative years of the United States. Tucker was born near Port Royal, Bermuda....
On May 24, 1854, federal marshals arrested Anthony Burns, kicking off one of the most famous fugitive slave – and nullification – cases in U.S. history. Burns ultimately lost his court case and was returned to slavery, but the cost of the trial, along with...
With the Constitution ratified by the necessary states in 1788, it officially became the supreme law of the land in the states so ratifying. Up until this point in the story, there wasn’t a single piece of direct, or even indirect evidence, of a concerted effort to...
Note: This is the second in a three-part series examining a pro-slavery interpretation of the Second Amendment that persists to this day. You can read part 1 HERE. The Hidden History of the Second Amendment by law professor Carl T. Bogus argued that James...