The Brion McClanahan Author & Historian Blog

When the 55 delegates to the Philadelphia Convention assembled at the Pennsylvania Statehouse in May 1787, only a handful knew that the gathering would potentially be a seismic shift in American politics. The majority of the delegates believed they attended to simply review the Articles of Confederation and present amendments. Not so for the nationalists bent on “remaking” America. As John Dickinson warned once their …more

When I was a young lad in graduate school, I wanted to to write my dissertation in Abraham Lincoln. This was post Tom DiLorenzo’s The Real Lincoln, and I wanted to focus exclusively on Lincoln’s abuse of power. This had already been done, at least to an extent. One faculty member at South Carolina pulled me aside and told me not to do it, not …more

American conservatives seemed to be confused about the real goal of American education. It isn’t to foster creative thinking or problem solving skills. It isn’t to introduce students to the classics or a wide range of topics. It’s to “educate,” and by educate, I mean “indoctrinate.” That means having the “correct” opinion on every important subject. Nothing is safe. You see, every subject in most …more

Recent Supreme Court decisions have the progressive left apoplectic. They almost can’t understand how their monster, the federal court system, has gone rabid and turned against them. I say almost because they believe they know the culprit. You. You vote for conservatives who in turn have had the chance to nominate dozens of justices to the federal courts. That has turned their baby against them. …more

On Jul 4, 1976, President Gerald Ford addressed a large crowd at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. His advisors worried that his previous speeches on the meaning of the founding were getting lost in the media shuffle, and they wanted him to make a definitive statement about the bicentennial. This was his chance. Everyone would be watching and the media had to cover this speech. One …more

I predicted in 2015 that the woke mob would not stop at Confederate monuments. Neocons didn’t listen and instead hid behind their self-righteousness and moral preening. You see, they loved Abraham Lincoln, so they were on the right side of history. Confederates were Democrats (or Nazis) who deserved to be purged. And what American doesn’t love the “Great Emancipator”? They forgot that Lincoln had some …more

A few weeks ago I talked about Harvard’s $100 million project to atone for their complicity in the institution of slavery. That isn’t good enough, at least according to one lawsuit. The original suit was filed in 2019, long before Harvard pledged the mea culpa dough, but a Massachusetts court recently held that Harvard could be sued for “emotional distress” over a couple of 1850s …more

Damon Root at Reason.com thinks the recent Dobbs decision is an “insult to the 9th Amendment.” His position is based on two faulty premises: 1. That “originalism” is based on what the opponents of the Constitution worried the document would do rather than what the proponents swore it would not do, i.e. consolidate all power in the hands of the central government. 2. Incorporation The …more

Welcome to the new establishment Republican talking point: Joe Biden is Jimmy Carter 2.0. When I tell people I wrote a book about bad presidents, the first question I usually get is something like this: “Is Jimmy Carter at the top of your list?” No. He doesn’t even make the top fifteen worst presidents. Carter was a symptom of the disease in office, but as …more