I wrote my PhD dissertation, back in the late-1990s, on the Congress of the Confederate States of America. It was a series of three essays, and they were very much HPE -- before there was an HPE. The first two used the Confederate Congress as a comparative case to study contemporary questions in the US … Continue reading HPE and the Confederate Constitution
When the 45th Congress (1877-79) convened in October 1877, the Republicans found themselves in a vexing political situation. Reconstruction was effectively over. The Democrats controlled the House and all eleven states of the ex-Confederacy, while the GOP maintained a tenuous grip on the Senate and the presidency. Governing power was now divided between the Party … Continue reading Rep. James O’Hara (R-NC) and Discrimination in Interstate Travel
As the 117th Congress begins its work after the tumultuous 2020 election, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate – working with the new Joe Biden administration – face an uncertain political landscape with very slim majorities. While much has been made of the 50-50 split in the Senate, which provides Vice President Kamala Harris … Continue reading Disputed Elections in the U.S. House
In 1891, the Federal Elections Bill – spearheaded by Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) – died in the Senate. This bill would have provided the federal government with new power to enforce African American voting rights in the South. Its demise was a devastating blow to the Republican Party, and also signaled the GOP’s last … Continue reading When Democrats in Congress Tried to Ban Interracial Marriage
Scholars often argue that the period between the Civil Rights Acts of 1875 and 1957 was devoid of successful congressional legislation to protect the rights of Black Americans. Some important attempts were made – like Senator Henry Blair’s (R-NH) bill in the 1880s to provide for primary education for both Blacks and Whites; Senator Henry … Continue reading The Morrill Act of 1890: The Overlooked Civil Rights Act
This weekend, Daylight Saving Time (DST) – which has been a part of everyday life in the United States (and around the world) since the late-1960s – ends.[1] The goal of DST is to preserve as much daylight as possible during the typical waking hours in the summer months. Clocks are shifted ahead an hour, … Continue reading Congress and the Political Economy of Daylight Saving Time (UPDATE)
In recent years, more and more political scientists have set their Wayback Machine[1] for travel to earlier eras in order to study various aspects of congressional history. This trend is remarkable in that, not long ago, most students of Congress focused almost exclusively on contemporaneous events and behaviors, to the point where (testing the boundaries … Continue reading Congressional History and American Political Development
As I wrote on Friday, by the 1890s, the Republican Party in the South was mostly viewed as a set of rotten boroughs. In each state – outside of a few areas in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia – a Republican organization existed not to compete in elections, but to control delegations at the Republican … Continue reading The Lost History of Southern Republicans, Part II
The electoral foundation of the modern Republican Party is the U.S. South. In 2016, for example, Donald Trump won 304 electoral votes, with 155 coming from the eleven states of the former Confederacy. Overall, Trump won 10 of 11 Southern states – losing only Virginia. And as the figure below illustrates, the Republican candidate for … Continue reading The Lost History of Southern Republicans, Part I
For much of its history, the American educational system – specifically primary and secondary schooling – was almost exclusively a state and local concern. This changed with the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which established the federal government as a major funder of schools with the intent of fighting poverty, guaranteeing equal access, and shrinking achievement gaps. Subsequent federal laws – Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994, No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, and Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 – followed. CONTINUE READING