I'm Rachel Shelden and I am a professor of history and the director of the George & Ann Richards Civil War Era Centerat Penn State University. I'm really looking forward to answering questions you might have about the research, writing, and content of my new new book, The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History, which will be out next week with UNC Press/Hodding Carter III imprint.
The book argues that the Supreme Court was a political institution by design and in practice during the nineteenth century. Members of the Court engaged with politics along three intersecting lines: (1) outside the courtroom, by participating in a wide range of partisan activities such as campaigning, writing legislation, ghost writing presidential addresses, and even running for office from the bench; (2) through "judicial representation"--the now abandoned concept that justices would "represent" a particular region of the country where they would interact with the people through the practice of "circuit riding" (serving concurrently as circuit judges and holding federal trials); and (3) in their courtroom, where they did not command ultimate constitutional authority but instead were participating in a broadly-shared conversation about the nature, function, and future of the Union.
I spent 13 years researching and writing this book, and the sources are wide-ranging, from "traditional" legal sources such as court cases and statutes to letters and diaries, newspapers & pamphlets, and even etiquette books and housing records.
Very glad to answer questions about this book, my first book, Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, & the Coming of the Civil War, and/or about the Richards Civil War Era Center throughout the day!
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