All posts by Kevin Brewer

About Kevin Brewer

I am Kevin Terral Brewer, a history and government teacher in the Benton County, Tennessee public school system. I have taught history, United States government, and other social studies for over twenty years, and I hold three college degrees: a B.A. in political science and an M.S. in education curriculum and instruction, both from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and an M.S. in history from Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. I have a deep and abiding interest in United States political and cultural history, particularly the history of institutions, such as the presidency and the Supreme Court. I am an active follower of, and commentator on, conservative and libertarian causes. I am married, nearly fifty years old, and am the father of three children, one of whom is grown and is the mother of my only grandchild. I can also be found on Facebook.

The First Wednesday in March Next: March 4 in American Presidential History

History, Presidential History, , ,

Today is March 4. Until about eighty years ago, this was an important date to the American people, and it is still of great historical importance.

March 4, 1789 was the date set by the “United States in Congress Assembled” (the “Confederation Congress”—the U.S. legislature that preceded the Congress of the United States) for the new Constitution of the United States to take effect.

On Sept 13. 1788, the Confederation Congress passed the following resolution:

Resolved That the first Wednesday in Jany next be the day for appointing Electors in the several states, which before the said day shall have ratified the said Constitution; that the first Wednesday in feby next be the day for the electors to assemble in their respective states and vote for a president; And that the first Wednesday in March next be the time and the present seat of Congress the place for commencing proceedings under the said constitution.

Continue reading The First Wednesday in March Next: March 4 in American Presidential History →

Reflections on the Lindbergh Kidnapping

Historic crime, History

March 1.

Eighty-three years ago this day, at around 9:00 P.M., someone entered the grounds of a property known as Highfields, in the Sourland Mountains near Hopewell, New Jersey,  placed two sections of a strange-looking, homemade, three-stage extension ladder against a brand new white field stone house, and climbed to the top.

Of that much we can be reasonably certain.

Reading in the room below was the most famous man in the world, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, who in 1927 had flown the Atlantic alone, transforming himself, unwittingly and to his regret, into the first modern celebrity. Alone in his study, Lindbergh heard a “crack”—it sounded, he said, like something breaking apart an orange crate—but the night was windy and raw, and he thought nothing of it.

Continue reading Reflections on the Lindbergh Kidnapping →

A Life Nobly Spent or Sacrificed: John Quincy Adams Confronts Slavery, 1819-1848

History, Presidential History

On February 21, 1848, Congressman John Quincy Adams, representative of the Plymouth District of Massachusetts, collapsed from a stroke at his desk in the chamber of the House of Representatives. Adams was 80 years old and had endured a cerebral hemorrhage in 1846, which had left him frail and weakened. Now too ill to be moved farther, the fallen legislator was taken to an office just off the House chamber (now Statuary Hall), where he lingered for two days before dying there on February 23.

For seventeen years, this most unique of congressmen had exploited his combination of notoriety, fame, experience, talent, and unparalleled links to the Founding Fathers to fight against the institution of slavery, an institution that he feared might eventually destroy the Union.[1] For seven of those years, he struggled incessantly against the infamous “Gag Rule,” to restore and defend the right of members of Congress (and, by extension, their constituents) to openly discuss abolition petitions. He fought his final struggles against the annexation of Texas and against the Mexican War, because he saw within those issues more portents of national peril related to—again—slavery. Continue reading A Life Nobly Spent or Sacrificed: John Quincy Adams Confronts Slavery, 1819-1848 →