You didn’t expect this.  Part of a majority segment of a U.S. Supreme Court decision—that is, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s concurrence in the birthright citizenship case—builds upon and amplifies the writings of historians Eric Foner, Kate Masur, Ira Berlin, Isabel Wilkerson, Kenneth Stampp, David Blight, and Manisha Sinha.  “The architects ...
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Birthright citizenship is controlled by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside.” Everyone agrees that “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes children born to Native ...
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Recent events have turned public attention to the previously obscure Militia Act of 1903 and the even more obscure historians and political scientists interested in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century insurrection law. President Donald Trump claimed that the measure vests him with the power to federalize members of the California National Guard ...
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The Civil War and Reconstruction transformed immigration policy in the United States, marking the transition from a sub-national to a national policy for regulating the admission, exclusion, and removal of foreigners. Before that turning point, Congress played almost no role in regulating immigration, other than naturalization policy (for white people) ...
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Books can have an impact. Readers without patience to wade through all 1,074 pages of Ron Chernow’s frequently cited biography are told in the introduction that Ulysses S. Grant was “the single most important figure behind Reconstruction” and that the “imperishable story of Grant’s presidency was his campaign to crush ...
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