Books
Form K-115, Ku Klux Klan Collection, Social Welfare History Archives, Box 29, Archives and Special Collections, University of Minnesota Libraries.
FORTHCOMING 2026
White Power: Policing American Slavery
Coming soon, the story of how enslavers built their own legal and policing system to try to control and punish enslaved people.
Description
Insurrections, white supremacists, and police violence dominate our headlines. We’ve seen neo-Nazis invade Charlottesville, book burnings, an attack on the capitol, and an attempted coup d’etat. Make no mistake about it, today the winds of American autocracy are swirling. What most Americans don’t know, however, is that this country has a long history of autocracy that dates back to the beginnings of slavery. Vicious, whip-wielding enslavers are already notorious figures in American history for their brutality. However, they also built their own system of government and an enormous police state to control enslaved people. Enslavers didn’t only rule over the plantation; they controlled the government. Sometimes, they were the government; the rule of law was the rule of their law. And in our present political darkness, this once distant history is more recognizable than ever.
Form K-115, Ku Klux Klan Collection, Social Welfare History Archives, Box 29, Archives and Special Collections, University of Minnesota Libraries.
National Duties:
Custom Houses and the Making of the American State
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016)
***Paperback available 6/2025***
Description
The origins of the federal government and the modern American state lie in founding-era conflicts over the tariff, taxes, and regulations at government custom houses. From the American Revolution through the presidency of Andrew Jackson, a push-and-pull between merchants, magnates, federal officers, judges and presidents forged a new type of government, which continued to be a major force in American society. Even today, as Americans battle over tariffs and federal power, they revisit a formative legal and political struggle of the American past.