Richard Samuelson is a historian and professor at California State University, San Bernardino, specializing in American political history and the founding era. He contributed essays to The Weekly Standard exploring constitutional questions, the legacy of the American founding, and the intersection of historical and contemporary politics.
If Americans today know John Quincy Adams, whose 250th birthday we celebrate on July 11, it is probably as Congressman Adams—Anthony Hopkins’ character in the film Amistad. Congressman Adams was Adams at his best. But that was a late development.
During the American Revolution, the Book of Samuel became a popular text for sermons. In particular the story of the people Israel begging for a king: “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles." Samuel…
According to legend, John Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence with a signature so large that the King of England could see it without his spectacles. That bit of bravado has long been a staple of American history classes. I must have heard it several times growing up, and even in…
Martha Minow and Deanell Tacha, the deans of Harvard Law School and Pepperdine School of Law, respectively, are frustrated at the Senate's refusal to consider Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court. They claim that "two-thirds of Americans want the senators to do their…
Two hundred and forty years ago this month, a gang of Bostonians dressed as Indians boarded the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver and dumped 90,000 pounds of tea into Boston Harbor. That fateful action on December 16, 1773, and Parliament’s inflammatory response—closing the Port of Boston,…