Blog Posts

August 29, 1786 – Shays' Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt and tax burdens.

8/29/2021

Daniel and Abigail Shays' Pelham, MA farmhouse, c. 1898

Shays' Rebellion was an armed uprising in Western Massachusetts and Worcester in response to a debt crisis among the citizenry and in opposition to the state government's increased efforts to collect taxes both on individuals and their trades. The fight took place mostly in and around Springfield during 1786 and 1787. American Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led four thousand rebels (called Shaysites) in a protest against economic and civil rights injustices. Shays was a farmhand from Massachusetts at the beginning of the Revolutionary War; he joined the Continental Army, saw action at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Battle of Bunker Hill, and Battles of Saratoga, and was eventually wounded in action.

In 1787, Shays' rebels marched on the federal Springfield Armory in an unsuccessful attempt to seize its weaponry and overthrow the government. The confederal government found itself unable to finance troops to put down the rebellion, and it was consequently put down by the Massachusetts State militia and a privately funded local militia. The widely held view was that the Articles of Confederation needed to be reformed as the country's governing document, and the events of the rebellion served as a catalyst for the Constitutional Convention and the creation of the new government. There is still debate among scholars concerning the rebellion's influence on the Constitution and its ratification.

August 28, 1955 – Black teenager Emmett Till is brutally murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent civil rights movement.

8/28/2021

Open Casket at Emmett Till's funeral in Chicago

Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.

Till was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. During summer vacation in August 1955, he was visiting relatives near Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Till was accused of flirting with or whistling at Bryant. Till's interaction with Bryant, perhaps unwittingly, violated the unwritten code of behavior for a black male interacting with a white female in the Jim Crow-era South. Several nights after the incident in the store, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam were armed when they went to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted Emmett. They took him away and beat and mutilated him, before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river.

Till's body was returned to Chicago where his mother insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket which was held at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ. It was later said that "The open-coffin funeral held by Mamie Till Bradley exposed the world to more than her son Emmett Till's bloated, mutilated body. Her decision focused attention not only on U.S. racism and the barbarism of lynching but also on the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy". Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his open casket, and images of his mutilated body were published in black-oriented magazines and newspapers, rallying popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the lack of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around the U.S. critical of the state. Although local newspapers and law enforcement officials initially decried the violence against Till and called for justice, they responded to national criticism by defending Mississippians, temporarily giving support to the killers.

In September 1955, an all-white jury found Bryant and Milam not guilty of Till's murder. Protected against double jeopardy, the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with Look magazine that they had killed Till. Till's murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the civil rights movement. In December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott began in Alabama and lasted more than a year, resulting eventually in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional. According to historians, events surrounding Emmett Till's life and death continue to resonate. An Emmett Till Memorial Commission was established in the early 21st century. The Sumner County Courthouse was restored and includes the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. Fifty-one sites in the Mississippi Delta are memorialized as associated with Till.

August 27, 1927 – Five Canadian women file a petition to the Supreme Court of Canada, asking, "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?"

8/27/2021

Women are Persons! Monument to the Famous Five in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney, Emily Murphy, and Irene Parlby are known in Canada as the "Famous Five." Their fame arises from asking a deceptively simple question -are women considered to by "persons" under the law? To modern readers, the question seems ridiculous, but in 1927 in Canada, the issue was very much a point of contention, and the initial answer which the Famous Five received may very well surprise you.

On August 27, 1927, they petitioned the federal government to refer the issue of the eligibility of women to be senators to the Supreme Court of Canada. This petition was the foundation of the Persons Case, a leading constitutional decision. Although most Canadian women had the vote in federal elections and all provinces but Quebec by 1927, the case was part of a larger drive for political equality. This was the first step towards equality for women in Canada and was the start to the first wave of feminism.

The question the federal government posed to the Supreme Court was: "Does the word 'Persons' in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?" In 1928, the Supreme Court unanimously held that women were not "qualified persons" within the meaning of s. 24 of the British North America Act, 1867. The five women appealed that ruling to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the highest court of appeal in the British Empire. The women of the famous 5 collectively came together for the supreme court on March 14, 1928 to fight for women's status as "persons". This attempt failed and the court deemed women not qualified for this status. On October 18, 1929, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overruled the Supreme Court and held that women were "qualified persons" and eligible to be appointed to the Senate.

Some saw this as "radical change"; others saw it as a restoration of the original framing of the English constitutional documents, including the 1689 Bill of Rights, which uses only the term person, not the term man (or woman for that matter). Some others have interpreted the Privy Council rule as causing a change in the Canadian judicial approach to the Canadian constitution, an approach that has come to be known as the "living tree doctrine".

August 26, 1789 – The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is approved by the National Constituent Assembly of France.

8/26/2021

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution.

The Declaration was originally drafted by the Marquis de Lafayette, in consultation with Thomas Jefferson. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law. It is included in the beginning of the constitutions of both the Fourth French Republic (1946) and Fifth Republic (1958) and is still current. Inspired by Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a major impact on the development of popular conceptions of individual liberty and democracy in Europe and worldwide.

The 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, together with the 1215 Magna Carta, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, and the 1789 United States Bill of Rights, inspired, in large part, the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The content of the document emerged largely from the ideals of the Enlightenment. The principal drafts were prepared by Lafayette, working at times with his close friend Thomas Jefferson. In August 1789, the Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès and Honoré Mirabeau played a central role in conceptualizing and drafting the final Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

The last article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was adopted on the 26 of August 1789 by the National Constituent Assembly, during the period of the French Revolution, as the first step toward writing a constitution for France. Inspired by the Enlightenment, the original version of the Declaration was discussed by the representatives on the basis of a 24 article draft proposed by the sixth bureau led by Jérôme Champion de Cicé. The draft was later modified during the debates. A second and lengthier declaration, known as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1793, was written in 1793 but never formally adopted.

The concepts in the Declaration come from the philosophical and political duties of the Enlightenment, such as individualism, the social contract as theorized by the Genevan philosopher Rousseau, and the separation of powers espoused by the Baron de Montesquieu. As can be seen in the texts, the French declaration was heavily influenced by the political philosophy of the Enlightenment and principles of human rights as was the U.S. Declaration of Independence which preceded it.

The declaration defines a single set of individual and collective rights for all men. Influenced by the doctrine of natural rights, these rights are held to be universal and valid in all times and places. For example, "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good." They have certain natural rights to property, to liberty, and to life. According to this theory, the role of government is to recognize and secure these rights. Furthermore, the government should be carried on by elected representatives.

At the time it was written, the rights contained in the declaration were only awarded to men. Furthermore, the declaration was a statement of vision rather than reality. The declaration was not deeply rooted in either the practice of the West or even France at the time. The declaration emerged in the late 18th century out of war and revolution. It encountered opposition as democracy and individual rights were frequently regarded as synonymous with anarchy and subversion. This declaration embodies ideals and aspirations towards which France pledged to struggle in the future.

The text, translated into English, of the Declaration:

The representatives of the French People, formed into a National Assembly, considering ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of man to be the only causes of public misfortunes and the corruption of Governments, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn Declaration, the natural, unalienable and sacred rights of man, to the end that this Declaration, constantly present to all members of the body politic, may remind them unceasingly of their rights and their duties; to the end that the acts of the legislative power and those of the executive power, since they may be continually compared with the aim of every political institution, may thereby be the more respected; to the end that the demands of the citizens, founded henceforth on simple and incontestable principles, may always be directed toward the maintenance of the Constitution and the happiness of all.

In consequence whereof, the National Assembly recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on considerations of the common good.
The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of Man. These rights are Liberty, Property, Safety and Resistance to Oppression.
The principle of any Sovereignty lies primarily in the Nation. No corporate body, no individual may exercise any authority that does not expressly emanate from it.
Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of every man has no bounds other than those that ensure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. These bounds may be determined only by Law.
The Law has the right to forbid only those actions that are injurious to society. Nothing that is not forbidden by Law may be hindered, and no one may be compelled to do what the Law does not ordain.
The Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part, personally or through their representatives, in its making. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in its eyes, shall be equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.
No man may be accused, arrested or detained except in the cases determined by the Law, and following the procedure that it has prescribed. Those who solicit, expedite, carry out, or cause to be carried out arbitrary orders must be punished; but any citizen summoned or apprehended by virtue of the Law, must give instant obedience; resistance makes him guilty.
The Law must prescribe only the punishments that are strictly and evidently necessary; and no one may be punished except by virtue of a Law drawn up and promulgated before the offense is committed, and legally applied.
As every man is presumed innocent until he has been declared guilty, if it should be considered necessary to arrest him, any undue harshness that is not required to secure his person must be severely curbed by Law.
No one may be disturbed on account of his opinions, even religious ones, as long as the manifestation of such opinions does not interfere with the established Law and Order.
The free communication of ideas and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man. Any citizen may therefore speak, write and publish freely, except what is tantamount to the abuse of this liberty in the cases determined by Law.
To guarantee the Rights of Man and of the Citizen a public force is necessary; this force is therefore established for the benefit of all, and not for the particular use of those to whom it is entrusted.
For the maintenance of the public force, and for administrative expenses, a general tax is indispensable; it must be equally distributed among all citizens, in proportion to their ability to pay.
All citizens have the right to ascertain, by themselves, or through their representatives, the need for a public tax, to consent to it freely, to watch over its use, and to determine its proportion, basis, collection and duration.
Society has the right to ask a public official for an accounting of his administration.
Any society in which no provision is made for guaranteeing rights or for the separation of powers, has no Constitution.
Since the right to Property is inviolable and sacred, no one may be deprived thereof, unless public necessity, legally ascertained, obviously requires it, and just and prior indemnity has been paid

August 25, 1948 – The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: "Confrontation Day" between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.

8/25/2021

Alger Hiss

Whittaker Chambers

Republican Members of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1948 (l to r): Representative Richard B. Vail of Illinois, Chairman John Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, Representative John McDowell of Pennsylvania, Robert Stripling (chief counsel), and Representative Richard M. Nixon of California

The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and from 1969 onwards known as the House Committee on Internal Security, was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. The HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having fascist or communist ties. Although the House abolished the committee in 1975, its functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee.

The committee's anti-communist investigations are often associated with McCarthyism, although Joseph McCarthy himself (as a U.S. Senator) had no direct involvement with the House committee. McCarthy was the chairman of the Government Operations Committee and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate, not the House.

On July 31, 1948, the committee heard testimony from Elizabeth Bentley, an American who had been working as a Soviet agent in New York. Among those whom she named as communists was Harry Dexter White, a senior U.S. Treasury department official. The committee subpoenaed Whittaker Chambers on August 3, 1948. Chambers, too, was a former Soviet spy, by then a senior editor of Time magazine. Chambers named more than a half-dozen government officials including White as well as Alger Hiss. Most of these former officials refused to answer committee questions, citing the Fifth Amendment. White denied the allegations, and died of a heart attack a few days later. In an open letter dated August 24, 1948, Hiss claimed that the committee needed to end its “verdict-first-and-testimony later tactics.”

On August 25, 1948, Hiss and Chambers faced each other in a public hearing before the Committee in its first live televised hearing. The Cannon Caucus Room, located in the Cannon House Office Building, became center stage for the media spectacle involving the House’s most infamous committee. Chambers repeated his allegations, with Hiss vehemently denying them.

Referring to the disputed statements between the two men, Committee Chairman J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey began the proceedings, informing both witnesses that, “certainly one of you will be tried for perjury.” After more than six hours of testimony, the day of questioning ended inconclusively.

After the hearings, many Republicans asserted that the investigation demonstrated that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations were soft on communism; Democrats claimed it was a “smear” campaign.

During the hearing, Hiss challenged Chambers to repeat his accusations outside the hearing chamber where he would not be shielded from a claim of slander. Chambers did so, and Hiss filed a civil action against Chambers. This, however, proved his undoing, as subsequent to the hearing additional evidence was uncovered that supported certain claims made by Chambers. Hiss lost the civil action and was subsequently indicted for perjury.

In 1950, a trial jury convicted Hiss and he was sentenced to five years in prison. Hiss maintained his innocence, a claim that stirred controversy among historians for decades afterward. In the 1990s, relying on Soviet archives and records from the Venona project - a secret U.S. program that decrypted Soviet intelligence messages - some scholars argued that Hiss had indeed been a spy on the Kremlin’s payroll.

August 24, 1215 – Magna Carta is ruled to be invalid . . . Wait . . . What?

8/24/2021

Magna Carta (not "The" Magna Carta, as the translation of Magna Carta form the Latin includes the definitive article "The Great Charter") is universally recognized as the foundation of English, and by extension, American, constitution government. Except, of course, that it isn't.

Although many of the ideas expressed in Magna Carta are similar or identical to modern concepts of liberal democracy - trial by jury, no taxation without consent of the governed, the government is subject to the law, etc. - the fact is that Magna Carta was imposed on King John by the English barons at Runnymede  under duress. As soon as the barons had returned to their estates and, more importantly, most, but not all, had disbanded their retinues of knights and men-at-arms, John set about undoing what had been done.

His first act was to send an emissary to the Vatican, seeking to have Pope Clement III declare Magna Carta to be contrary to God's will. John had good reason to hope that the Pope would respond positively to this entreaty.

Magna Carta had not appeared full born on June 15, 2025, but was the process of a years long process of negotiation during which John sought to delay having to make any concessions to the barons while gather international support. During these negotiations, it was John's hope that the Pope would give him valuable legal and moral support, and accordingly John played for time; the King had declared himself to be a papal vassal in 1213 and correctly believed he could count on the Pope for help. John also began recruiting mercenary forces from France, although some were later sent back to avoid giving the impression that the King was escalating the conflict. In a further move to shore up his support, John took an oath to become a crusader, a move which gave him additional political protection under church law, even though many felt the promise was insincere.

Letters backing John arrived from the Pope in April 2015, but by then the rebel barons had organized into a military faction. They congregated at Northampton in May and renounced their feudal ties to John, marching on London, Lincoln, and Exeter. John's efforts to appear moderate and conciliatory had been largely successful, but once the rebels held London, they attracted a fresh wave of defectors from the royalists. The King offered to submit the problem to a committee of arbitration with the Pope as the supreme arbiter, but this was not attractive to the rebels. Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, had been working with the rebel barons on their demands, and after the suggestion of papal arbitration failed, John instructed Langton to organize peace talks. The result was the great gathering at Runnymede and the sealing (not signing, as is often incorrectly stated) of Magna Carta.

Having failed at obtaining Papal arbitration, John simply requested that the Pope declare the charter to be null and void. Clement, who viewed any surrender of power by a temporal ruler to be a challenge to the Church's own power, obliged. In fact, Clement had dispatched commissioners even before John's request was received who arrived in England and promptly excommunicated the barons who had refused to disband their forces.  Once aware of the charter, the Pope responded in detail: in a letter dated 24 August and arriving in late September, he declared the charter to be "not only shameful and demeaning but also illegal and unjust" since John had been "forced to accept" it, and accordingly the charter was "null, and void of all validity for ever"; under threat of excommunication, the King was not to observe the charter, nor the barons try to enforce it.

By then, however, violence had broken out between the two sides; less than three months after it had been agreed, John and the loyalist barons firmly repudiated the failed charter: the First Barons' War erupted. The rebel barons concluded that peace with John was impossible, and turned to Philip II's son, the future Louis VIII, for help, offering him the English throne. The war soon settled into a stalemate. The King became ill and died on the night of 18 October 1216, leaving the nine-year-old Henry III as his heir.

Although the Charter of 1215 was a failure as a peace treaty, it was resurrected under the new government of the young Henry III as a way of drawing support away from the rebel faction. On his deathbed, King John appointed a council of thirteen executors to help Henry reclaim the kingdom, and requested that his son be placed into the guardianship of William Marshal, one of the most famous knights in England.  William knighted the boy, and Cardinal Guala Bicchieri, the papal legate to England, then oversaw his coronation at Gloucester Cathedral on 28 October.

It would not be until 1217 that peace was nominally restored in England with Henry confirmed on the throne and a modified version of the Charter adopted (but only occasionally and inconsistently adhered to). The primary reason the conflict ended was the real concern that  Louis would gain the throne of England and, in effect, incorporate the nation into a larger French state once he succeeded to that throne, without any guarantee concessions. The rebel barons began to defect to Henry when they realized that they might have to face a powerful, perhaps indomitable, French monarch rather than a relatively weak English one still in his minority.

Thus, while many of the principles set out in Magna Carta were subsequently repeated and enhanced in subsequent documents and eventually adopted as formal laws, the Great Charter was, essentially, a failure in that it neither produced the hoped for peace nor resulted in more than a token acceptance by King John. The Pope's declaration that the Charter was null and void was never "reversed" by any authority - Magna Carta effectively ceased to be enforceable on August 24, 2015, two months and nine days after it was sealed.

August 23, 1927 – Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are executed six years after their controversial trial.

8/23/2021

Sacco and Vanzetti

The conviction and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for murders of Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli remains one of the most controversial incidents in American legal history. Conclusive evidence of Sacco and Vanzetti's guilt or innocence has never been established. What is certain is that the police investigation and subsequent trial were heavily tainted by anti-immigrant bias.

Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian immigrant who were controversially accused of murdering Parmenter and Beradelli, a guard and a paymaster, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts. The police investigation immediately focused on the Italian immigrant community of the Boston area, giving particular attention to members of the anarchist movement. The investigation ultimately settled on an anarchist cell of which Sacco and Vanzetti were members.

Although there was significant evidence that the robbery was part of a broader scheme of violent criminal acts by anarchists to finance their revolutionary goals, evidence that the cell in which Sacco and Vanzetti were action was scant. Nonetheless, the two were arrested and indicted for the robbery and murders; Vanzetti was also charged with another robbery that had occurred in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, shortly before the Braintree Robbery. Following their arrest, a series of anarchist attacks were carried out; however, it is generally conceded that these were merely a response to the arrest of anyone associated with the movement.

Vanzetti was convicted on the Bridgewater robbery despite discrepancies in the testimony of the state's witnesses and the presentation of numerous alibi witnesses. It is generally accepted that the jury disregarded the alibi witnesses' testimony because they were all of Italian descent.

Sacco and Vanzetti went on trial May 21, 1921, at Dedham, Norfolk County for the Braintree robbery and murders. Webster Thayer, the judge in the Bridgewater trial, again presided; he had asked to be assigned to the trial. Frederick G. Katzmann prosecuted for the State. Thayer and and Katzmann were vocal opponents of immigrants and "political radicals."

Vanzetti was represented by brothers Jeremiah and Thomas McAnraney. Sacco was represented by Fred H. Moore and William J. Callahan. The choice of Moore, a former attorney for the Industrial Workers of the World, proved a key mistake for the defense. A notorious radical from California, Moore quickly enraged Judge Thayer with his courtroom demeanor, often doffing his jacket and once, his shoes. Reporters covering the case heard Judge Thayer, during a lunch recess, proclaim, "I'll show them that no long-haired anarchist from California can run this court!" and later, "You wait till I give my charge to the jury. I'll show them." Throughout the trial, Moore and Thayer clashed repeatedly over procedure and decorum.

There was almost no direct evidence implicating the two men, however circumstantial evidence, including forensic evidence that was subsequently question for its accuracy, was again set against the alibi testimony of immigrant Italian witnesses. After a few hours' deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge. Anti-Italianism, anti-immigrant, and anti-Anarchist bias were suspected as having heavily influenced the verdict.

A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. The appeals were based on recanted testimony, conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pretrial statement by the jury foreman, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. All appeals were denied by trial judge Webster Thayer and also later denied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. By 1926, the case had drawn worldwide attention. As details of the trial and the men's suspected innocence became known, Sacco and Vanzetti became the center of one of the largest causes célèbres in modern history. In 1927, protests on their behalf were held in every major city in North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Montevideo, Johannesburg, and Auckland.

Celebrated writers, artists, and academics pleaded for their pardon or for a new trial. Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter argued for their innocence in a widely read Atlantic Monthly article that was later published in book form. The two were scheduled to die in April 1927, accelerating the outcry. Responding to a massive influx of telegrams urging their pardon, Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed a three-man commission to investigate the case. After weeks of secret deliberation that included interviews with the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the commission upheld the verdict. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair just after midnight on August 23, 1927.

Investigations in the aftermath of the executions continued throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The publication of the men's letters, containing eloquent professions of innocence, intensified belief in their wrongful execution. Additional ballistics tests and incriminating statements by the men's acquaintances have clouded the case. On August 23, 1977—the 50th anniversary of the executions—Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names". Later analyses have also added doubt to their culpability in the crimes for which they were convicted.

August 22, 1654 – Jacob Barsimson arrives in New Amsterdam. He is the first known Jewish immigrant to America.

8/22/2021

Governor Peter Stuyvesant of New Amsterdam opposed the settlement of Jews in the colony, but was overruled by his superiors in Holland

Jacob Barsimson was one of the earliest Jewish settlers at New Amsterdam (New York City), and the earliest identified Jewish settler within the present limits of the state of New York and probably the first permanent Jewish settler in what would become the United States. Barsimson had been sent out by the Jewish leaders of Amsterdam, Dutch Republic to determine the possibilities of an extensive Jewish immigration to New Amsterdam. With the fall of Dutch Brazil, it was imperative for Jews planning to leave Europe to find other new homes. He arrived at that port on the ship Pear Tree on August 22, 1654, having left the Netherlands on July 8. Barsimson was succeeded by a party of 23 Jews, who arrived at New Amsterdam in September, from Recife, Brazil, and established the first Jewish settlement in what would become the United States.

Shortly after his arrival, a party of 23 Jews arrived in New Amsterdam aboard a Portuguese vessel that had been diverted from its planned return to Europe by a pirate attack. Unlike Barsimon, who had a passport from the Dutch West India Company, these arrivals were not welcomed by the local officials, who viewed them as a corrupting influence in the Christian colony. Nonetheless, Jews came from the West Indies, heavily dominated by Catholic Spain, and Brazil, where the former Dutch colony had been lost to the Portuguese, because they were disillusioned with the religious and political situations that existed there. The Jews settling in New Amsterdam were seeking the equality of free men in a land of liberty where they could freely worship and have equal opportunities and obligations alongside the Christian citizens.

In 1655, Barsimson and another early Jewish settler, Asser Levy, joined in a petition to Governor Peter Stuyvesant and council of New Netherland to be permitted to stand guard like the other burghers, or to be relieved from the special tax imposed upon their nation in lieu thereof by resolution of governor and council, but their request was curtly refused with the remark that they might go elsewhere if they liked. Instead of following the latter advice, Barsimson and other early American Jews succeeded before long in obtaining instructions to Governor Stuyvesant from his superiors, the Dutch West India Company, condemning such unjustified and illiberal discriminations.

Despite this victory, Barsimon and the other members of the Jewish community continued to suffer prejudice at the hands of the local authorities, obtaining relief only when Jewish leaders in the Netherlands applied pressure to the governors of the Dutch West India Company, who were heavily dependent on Jewish bankers and investors to finance their operations, to permit the New Amsterdam Jews to have certain rights including the ability to purchase their own burial plot.

In 1658, Barsimson succeeded in securing from the Dutch municipal court in New Amsterdam a ruling which is surprising even in the light of latter-day principles of religious liberty. He was summoned to court as defendant on a Saturday, but the court decided, in the terse language of the record that "though defendant is absent, yet no default is entered against him, as he was summoned on his Sabbath."

August 21, 1772 – King Gustav III completes his coup d'état by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot.

8/21/2021

Gustav III of Sweden

Can a king seize power from a democratically elected government in order to advance the Rule of Law? As peculiar as this notion sounds, it is effectively what happened in Sweden in 1772. At least that is what was intended. In practice, the corrupt elected government that was replaced by the "enlighten despotism" of the monarchy fell victim to the same foibles of the parliament it replaces.

Sweden's Constitution of 1772 (Swedish: regeringsform, "Instrument of Government") took effect through a bloodless coup d'état, the Revolution of 1772, carried out by Gustav III, who had become king in 1771. It established once again a division of power between the parliament and the king. The period came to be known as the Gustavian era. This was a response to a perceived harm wrought upon Sweden by a half-century of parliamentarism during the country's Age of Liberty practiced according to the Instrument of Government (1719), as many members of the Swedish parliament then used to be bribed by foreign powers.

Formally, the 1772 Constitution was adopted by the Parliament (Riksdag) on 21 August 1772, but this took place as members of the Parliament and the Privy Council were under threat by the royal garrison on order by King Gustav III outside of Stockholm Palace, where the Parliament and Privy Council were assembled in different parts of the palace. Leading members of the Caps party who sat in the Privy Council (as well as in Parliament) were arrested, as they were locked up in the Privy Council Room and released shortly after the adoption of the constitution. The 1772 Constitution was partly inspired by the current Enlightenment ideas of separation of powers by Montesquieu, but also based on earlier traditions in Sweden, especially from the era of King Gustav II Adolf, and two of the offices of the ancient Great Officers of the Realm were revived.

King Gustav III also cherished other Enlightenment ideas (as an enlighted despot) and repealed torture, liberated agricultural trade, diminished the use of death penalty etc. The somewhat later Freedom of the Press Act of 1774, a part of the constitutional law and largely edited by Gustav III, was actually commended by Voltaire. The earlier first Freedom of the Press Act of 1766 was repealed by the Constitution in 1772.

The outcome of the constitution and its deliberately vague formulations, partly attributable to it being written in haste, was however a more or less authoritarian political system more weighted in favor of the king's power. In 1789 it was amended in a still more autocratic direction by the Union and Security Act.  In theory, the king was required to "listen" to the privy council of the parliament, but in practice "listening" did not equate with accepting the advice of the elected government. In certain matters the council did have the power to veto an act by the king, but only on a unanimous vote, which was difficulty to achieve. The king did require approval of the parliament to raise taxes, enact new laws and declare war, but again the practice was to present these matters to the parliament as fait accomplis.

So was the 1772 Constitution a better expression of the Rule of Law than the 1720 constitution under which a corrupt parliament was ruining the Swedish economy and frittering away its sovereignty? Arguably it was. While the king did abuse his power, he also instituted reforms that benefited the people. Ultimately, however, the failure of the crown to honor the ideals of the constitution led to its downfall.   The 1772 Constitution was replaced by the 1809 Instrument of Government following the defeat in the Finnish War and the removal of King Gustav IV Adolf from the throne.

August 20, 1866 - The American Civil War Comes to an End . . . Wait . . . What?

8/20/2021

President Andrew Johnson's Proclamation of August 20, 1866 declaring an end to the American Civil War

When did the American Civil War begin? Most people will answer "with the firing upon Fort Sumter." A few may even remember the date -- April 12, 1865. This date is disputed by some who argue for the secession of South Carolina, or the seizure of federal forts and munitions in the weeks before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated. Still others will argue for June 25, 1861, the date of the formal resolution by Congress that the War was being fought to preserve the Union, not to end slavery.

But ask when the Civil War ended, and mostly you will get a thoughtful stare in reply. This is because most people remember being told that Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865 was not the end of the war. A few students of history will cite the date a month later when President Andrew Johnson, having assumed the office following the assassination of Lincoln, officially declared an end to the insurrection on May 9, 1865. Others will cite the surrender of Cherokee leader Stand Watie, who became the last Confederate general to surrender his forces on June 23, 1865. The final Confederate surrender was by the CSS Shenandoah on November 6, 1865 at the port of Liverpool, England, having sailed there from the Pacific in order to avoid internment and possible trial as commerce raiders, bringing all hostilities of the four year war to a close. But was the war over?

Well, no. despite the formal surrender of all field and navel commanders, the insurrection was not suppressed in many regions were forces of the confederacy either refused to disband or reconstituted into new insurgent forces (often little more than criminal gangs and vigilantes meting out revenge on union sympathizers and occupying forces). It was only in a presidential proclamation issued on April 2, 1866, President Johnson declared that the insurrection that had existed in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, and Virginia, was at an end. The one exception was Texas, where organized resistance still continued.

Later that summer, the President declared that the insurrection in Texas was suppressed. The President acknowledged that "adequate provisions had been made by military orders to enforce the execution of the acts of Congress, aid the civil authorities and secure obedience to the Constitution and the laws of the United States in the state of Texas."

On August 20, 1866, President Johnson issued a proclamation announcing the end of the American Civil War: "And I do further proclaim that the said insurrection is at an end and that peace, order, tranquility, and civil authority now exists in and throughout the whole of the United States of America."

With that proclamation the United States officially closed a costly, bloody, and deadly chapter in its nation's history that started at Fort Sumter several years—and hundreds of thousands lives—earlier.