270-Year-Old Book Found in Charleston

It's a book about parties in the 1780s. I actually think the bigger finds are the letters that they came across in the same search.

The recent search of the archives has already turned up several other gems that librarians didn't know were there.

They include two letters written by Alexander Hamilton and a unique third letter written by John Marshall, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to South Carolinian Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who helped draft the Constitution.

"It was written the day that Thomas Jefferson was sworn in (as president)," Kometer said. "John Marshall was the one who actually swore him in. He started a letter to Charles Coatesworth Pinckney in the morning and then he took a break and came back at 4 o'clock to finish the letter and said I have just administered the oath."

I don't have much of an interest in party etiquette, but a letter from Chief Justice John Marshall to Charles Pinckney would be pretty cool to see. I hope they will put the letters on display. I wonder what else is just laying around in the vault. It kind of reminds me of the last scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark". I'm sure some "top men" put those letters in that vault.

Emergency Action Message to GOP

Did Gingrich really just say he would subpoena SCOTUS Justices to have them "explain themselves" to Congress, and that the President and Congress get a "veto" of opinions they don't agree with? It sounds like the "historian" needs to read the Federalist Papers:

Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.

As far as Jackson ignoring the Supreme Court is concerned: He was wrong to do so, and he later changed his mind on the issue when the politics suited him. Lincoln ignoring Ex parte Merryman  was also wrong in hindsight. Gingrich is saying really stupid sounding things, and the only think I can guess is that he's hoping to win over the "I hate the lawyers" vote. Great.

And Romney is just the guy who says anything he needs to get elected. (Sound familiar?)

Hey GOP, the Iowa caucuses are just around the corner, and you still have some things need to be taken care of.

Don't make me force you to come in to work on a Saturday.