I spend most of my time writing about historic figures. Sometimes we ask ourselves, “did they know they were making history? Or were they too busy with daily lives to see the bigger picture?” Sometimes they didn’t. But my main characters (George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, etc.) knew their actions mattered. They knew they were living through historic moments. They knew their actions would change the world and they knew their choices would be documented in the history books. I can say, with complete certainty, we are living through one such moment.
I’ve watched every single minute of the January 6 Committee hearings. I’ll be completely honest; they’ve blown me away. I wasn’t expecting them to reveal much, change minds, or impress. Maybe I had become too cynical about politics. Or maybe the committee is just acting so very differently than most politicians these days.
They aren’t showboating, they aren’t campaigning, they aren’t bolstering their own reputations. They have presented a clear story, revealed overwhelming evidence, and relied almost entirely on Republican voices to do so.
As I’ve been watching and digesting the material, I’ve also been taking notes and writing Twitter thread summaries. It’s a lot of time and effort, and sometimes it’s pretty draining. This material is not fluffy. But I have the privilege and energy to write recaps, so it feels like a contribution I can make. A tiny one of course, but if I can make the information accessible to more people, I think its my obligation to do so.
I know not everyone has the time, flexibility, or even bandwidth to watch hours and hours of hearings. But I think everyone should have the opportunity to learn about the hearings. There is no excuse for ignorance at this moment.
If you’d like to catch up, here are my recap threads. You don’t need an account to read them.
Hearing 1:
Hearing 2:
Hearing 3:
Hearing 4:
Hearing 5:
Hearing 6:
Hearing 7:
I will continue to write and post these threads as long as I am able to do so.
Much like the framers, writing about the significance of the Revolutionary War and the Founding Era, the Committee appears to have a clear eye to its place in history. They frequently call upon the wisdom of former greats. Earlier this week, Representative Jamie Raskin quoted Lincoln:
“American democracy is a precious inheritance. Constitutional democracy is the silver frame upon which the golden apple of freedom rests.”
After hearing this quote, I wondered what Lincoln had to say about July 4. I was not feeling particularly celebratory this year and I heard from a lot of you that you felt the same. Last month, I wrote about how Lincoln was an optimist because he didn’t see the point in being otherwise. So, I couldn’t help but wonder, what did he have to say on the July 4ths that fell during the war? Did he retain his optimism? Was he morose? Was he angry?
I think he was all the above. He retained his belief that the Union would survive. He was angry at the threats to its safety. He was sad that American citizens had so badly fractured their bonds of friendship. And he left us with some highly prescient words for July 2022.
These passages came from his address to Congress on July 4, 1861. In the spring of 1861, Lincoln had selected to take decisive action after the Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. He engaged in warfare without Congress’s permission and used the opportunity to explain and defend his actions. He also put the conflict in historical context and explained the bigger principles behind the violence.
“It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic, or democracy--a government of the people by the same people--can or can not maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration according to organic law in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask, Is there in all republics this inherent and fatal weakness? Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?”
I should acknowledge that there is pretty much a Lincoln quote for any occasion, but seriously, these passages could have been written on January 7. I usually try not to include huge block quotes or several in a row, but I hope you’ll forgive me today. I do not have the hubris to think I could possibly summarize Lincoln better than his own words.
“Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled--the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains--its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.”
– Abraham Lincoln, July 4, 1861
It was a worthy fight then. It is a worthy fight now. Let’s keep at it.
If you are new to my newsletter, thank you! If you’d like to read more, please consider The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution.
Available for purchase on Amazon, Bookshop, or wherever you like to buy books.
Recent Op-eds:
Just a quick reminder that authors don’t choose their headlines!
“The U.S. Constitution Just Might Be Fatally Fucked Up,” The Daily Beast, July 11, 2022.
“Garland Has to Prosecute Trump for January 6 to Restore Faith in the Justice Department,” Washington Monthly, July 7, 2022.
“Mike Pence’s actions on Jan. 6 were wholly unremarkable – until they saved the nation,” The Conversation, June 17, 2022.
Podcasts:
The Thomas Jefferson Hour, July 12, 2022, #1503: The Opposite of Apathy with Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky
The Thomas Jefferson Hour, July 5, 2022, #1502: Ten Things About the Supreme Court
Two Writers Slinging Yang, June 28, 2022, Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky: Presidential historian and author of "The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution”
Press:
“From one July Fourth to the next, steep slide for Biden,” The Post Star, July 3, 2022.
Events:
September 15: Sam Houston State University Constitution Day Event
September 16: Houston University Constitution Day Event
September 24: Emerging Revolutionary War Symposium
December 2: New Jersey Council for History Education Annual Conference at Princeton University
Just 3 words - You are amazing. . . . perhaps a few more words - I truly enjoy listening to you when you appear on the Jefferson Hour!!!!!!
Hello Lindsay, it's nice to share a few thoughts with you after listening to you talk with Clay so many times. I am taking note of this:
Just a quick reminder that authors don’t choose their headlines!
“The U.S. Constitution Just Might Be Fatally Fucked Up,”
....and while I get that you probably would have chosen more elegant wording, I also think that this particular headline may actually get more directly to the Point of Our Moment than the article itself.
I write occasionally about American history and current events, and posted an item on my own blog for this year's 4th of July (before taking 40 of my best friends to a ballgame for the occasion):
https://www.incorrigiblearts.com/2022/07/03/america-its-still-a-good-idea/
...in which I make this convoluted statement:
"Murica! It really is the best idea anybody’s ever come up with for a country – even if its origins are steeped in contradictions, and even as the institutions that were formed to implement those ideas have outlived the compromises that were necessary accommodate those contradictions."
Point being: between the lopsided representations in the Senate, the persistence Electoral College, the lifetime appointments to SCOTUS and the insanely 'unconstitutional' filibuster, we are no longer a majority ruled nation and there is little prospect of that dilemma correcting itself in our (well, my - I'm considerably older than you) lifetimes.
Your article focuses more on the abandonment of unwritten norms, and I don't disagree with the premise. But as I see it the more fundamental problem is that the mechanisms those norms are baed on have reached a point of obsolescence, and that is how/why the norms of which you speak are so easily distorted.
Or, as. certain headline writer cut to the chase: the Constitution at this point really may be fatally fucked up.
And the path to fixing it looks even more perilous than our current plight.
Thank you for your good work and an opportunity to share a thought or three.
--PS