Readings: Pierce on the half-forgotten notion of commonwealth

p3 favorite Charlie Pierce makes a pilgrimage to the home of one of the most quintessentially American public policies, and shakes his head in sorrow at the “I built it myself!” chatterboxes who, a century and a half later, still subscribe to the opinion that it must have been a mistake.

[S]peaking in the Strafford Town Hall, which has been in continuous use as a public meeting space since 1809, Dr. Clement Price made the point that the Morrill Act was in keeping with what he called "the revolutionary age" in which it was signed. He listed it along with the Emancipation Act, the Homestead Act, and the Pacific Railroad Act as that age writ large in public policy, and he noted that none of them would have been possible had the Southern states not seceded and taken their insular vision of what the country meant with them.

Pierce's article is joining the rest of the Readings list in the sidebar.