On June 21, 1915, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an Oklahoma law denying the right to vote to some citizens. In Guinn v. United States, the Supreme Court found “grandfather clauses” in effect in several formerly slave states to be little more than sneaky ways of allowing illiterate white folks to vote while disallowing illiterate black folks.
The cry of equality pulls everyone down.
Iris Murdoch, as quoted in The Observer, September 13, 1987
On the 20th of June in 1787, at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Oliver Ellsworth moved to confine legislative powers to two distinct branches, and to strike the word “national” from the document. Edmund Randolph of Virginia had previously moved successfully to call the government the National Government of United States. Ellsworth moved that the government should continue to be called the United States of America.
The final wording eventually became “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.”
And, yes, the word “national” does not occur anywhere in the Constitution.
In 1941, Czech economist and politician Václav Klaus was born; other June 19 births include Salman Rushdie in 1947, Kathleen Turner in 1954, and Laura Ingraham in 1964.
“A man can only learn when he is free to act.”
Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State (1885)
It is time to get serious about equal rights under the law. And republican policing.
Click on over to Townhall for the timely assessment. Then click back here for full-spectrum perspective.
[W]e don’t really have stores that sell only groceries, shelf-stable products, anymore. Most stores sell a variety of shelf-stable and perishable goods. So most stores should be considered, technically, supermarkets. But there is a warmth to the term grocery store that encourages one to embrace it and hold on to it. In large part this is because it sill does connote — in this era of fragmentation and impersonal service and a food world that grows ever more confusing — a place that can be depended upon, day in and day out, where you can get everything you need to nourish your family. We like to think that our grocery store is run by a grocer (not a supermarketer). And we want to believe that there are capable people in charge of our food, people who care for it and ensure that the products are good.
Michael Ruhlman, Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America (New York: Abrams Press, May 16, 2017)
On June 18, 1838, Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert was born.
Auberon Herbert was a Liberal Member of Parliament who, after reading the writings of Herbert Spencer, became a radical individualist and author of essays such as “The Ethics of Dynamite,” “A Politician in Trouble About His Soul,” and “The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State.”
A slightly different take on the subject … than usual:
A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds.
J.-B. Say, A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Chapter XVII, Section I, p. 168