Today in Supreme Court History: September 16, 1787

9/16/1787: The Constitutional Convention finalizes Constitution.

The Constitution

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Socialist Labor Party v. Rhodes, 89 S.Ct. 3 (decided September 16, 1968): Stewart declines to order Ohio Secretary of State to place Socialist Labor Party candidates for federal office on ballot; Party has only 108 members and the relief it originally requested (space for write-ins) had already been granted (a much larger third party was involved in this litigation, and a month later the Court held that Ohio law making it impossible for any third party to get onto ballot violated Equal Protection, 393 U.S. 23)

[Sarcastr0]

As the election approaches I figure these threads can be a good refuge for slightly calmer side conversations.

Listening to a podcast going through pivotal US elections. The chose:
1800
1828
1860
1896
1912
1936
1980
2008.

Any duds in there? Amy they missed? Any you want to talk to more? I’ve only got through the first 3 so far.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

1932?

[Frank Drackman]

Should 2008 really count? That Hero (another example of Fake News, "45" said "He's a Hero") John McCain suspended his cam-pain when the market crashed.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

1992 and 2000 were fairly important.

Relatedly, I just re-read Gerard Magliocca's "Andrew Jackson and the Constitution: The Rise and Fall of Generation Regimes" (short book), which covers both presidential politics and the Supreme Court.

He notes at one point talks about the "common-law process at work, where intuitions drive the results and the deeper justifications come later."

Constitutional order over time, in his view, often was a result of generational conflict. This includes Supreme Court opinions such as "preemptive opinions" that try to block change.

He's a law professor and has written several books since then.

[Sarcastr0]

1992 is a good one; I don't know that I think 2000 was pivotal. It was important to us right now, but didn't have the kind of internal to the US political realignment that the other ones did.

Of course by that argument, 2016 should be there, not 2008.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The thought process would be what would happen if Gore won.

Various possibilities.

[Dan Schiavetta]

1. Continuing surpluses
2. No 9/11

[Frank Drackman]

how would 9/11 not have happened?

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, they are playing fast and loose about the election versus the administration.

1800 was all about the election; 1828 was all about the administration.
1860 was about counterfactuals of the election.
(Lincoln loses the primary - Seward is less moderate; CW kicks off maybe we lose Kentucky. Seward may have prosecuted the war more effectively.)
(Lincoln loses the general, Douglas lets slavery continue to preserve the union; we get slavery until 1880 and then Civil War kicks off nevertheless)

So yeah, you’re not wrong that 2000 is in keeping.

[defaultdotxbe]

I agree with all the current comments here

1932 more so than 1936.
1992 (and maybe 2000) more so than 2008.

[Sarcastr0]

What was the sea change about 1992?

[Frank Drackman]

Perot, who's voters (Me for one) eventually became "MAGA"

[not guilty]

1968. George Wallace's race baiting independent candidacy shook the traditional alliance between Southern voters and the national Democratic Party. Prick Nixon's Southern Strategy exploited that division and shepherded a realignment.

George Wallace is the godfather of today's Republican Party. To paraphrase 1 Corinthians 3:6, Wallace planted, Nixon watered, Satan gave the increase.

[Sarcastr0]

That's a good one. The Dems in disarray about black peoples' rights just as they were in 1860.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I'm glad we're having this "slightly calmer side conversation[]."

[Frank Drackman]

Maybe you should take your Namenda before totally making a fool of yourself, GCW was the only factor that gave Humpty Hump a chance of winning in 68' (Lets see, the sitting POTUS decided not to run, they kept RFK off the ballot, sound familiar?)
And as someone who's lived 10 years in Ali-Bama (still recovering) GCW turned on a dime and became the biggest Afro-Amurican Dick-Sucker in Alabama Politics, winning additional terms in 1970, 1974 and 1982 each time with 95% of the Colored vote.

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

Yay! no interference with the Slave Trade for 20 years! by then Slavery will be uneconomical and all of the Slaves can be sold to countries that can use them, like Mexico.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

On this date in 1620, English colonists aboard the Mayflower set sail for America, where they founded Plymouth, Massachusetts.

And, then some of their descendants thought they were all that. One was John Adams. Fine. But, hey, what about Bogie?

The Hollywood star (“Casablanca,” “The Maltese Falcon”) was a descendent of John Howland, who traveled aboard the Mayflower as an indentured servant.

https://www.history.com/news/7-famous-mayflower-descendants

[Mr. Bumble]

Bogie isn't mentioned in this list but Marilyn Monroe is.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/53577/11-famous-mayflower-descendants

[defaultdotxbe]

Mayflower material, I presume?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Another word on the presidential elections list.

Andrew Jackson was all concerned about the theft of 1824 or whatever. Calm down, dude.

You won a plurality and the combo of Adams and Clay [not included in the House of Representatives election because only the top 3 are included] surpassed your vote total.

(This is true if you go by electoral or popular vote.)

An Adams/Clay coalition represented the popular will as much as a Jackson presidency. The other candidate was Crawford, the old VA wing of the electorate. That sector didn't trust Jackson much either & at least some would throw their support to Clay if necessary.

Clay hated Jackson & thought he was a constitutional threat [see the book I referenced for further discussion]. It was not some "corrupt bargain" for him to oppose him.

There were two candidates in 1828 and Jackson then won cleanly.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, what Jackson was pissed about was a pretty ordinary formation of a political coalition to get something done.

But that was all new, so who was to say something was out of bounds.

So it wasn’t even necessarily dishonest. And it worked.

I’m certainly no Jackson fan, but there’s a good argument that ONLY a crazy bitter asshole racist southerner Constitutionalist could have kept South Carolina from seceding or warring on federal employees in the nullification crisis.

And, more importantly, the end of the Founding hereditary aristocracy was going to happen sooner or later.