1/15 You'll hear a lot of talk today about how what happened yesterday is extraordinary and antithetical to our history. It's important to reject that idea, not out of cynicism or pessimism but because that pretense of innocence is dangerous. Let's talk about U.S. Cruikshank.

2/15 Cruikshank is a case virtually every single con law casebook discusses though most con law professors don't necessarily spend a great deal of time talking about but it's instructive about how we frame yesterday's events.

3/15 In Cruikshank, decided in 1875, SCOTUS considered whether, under the Enforcement Act of 1870, the federal government had the power to prosecute members of a white mob that killed between 80 to 150 Black people. The case was essentially about a mass lynching.

4/x The Court concluded Congress lacked the power to authorize such prosecutions because the massacre involved criminal matters constitutionally left to the states. In short, the court said the massacre was a series of murders and it was up to the states to prosecute such crimes

5/15 The thing is if you read the opinion, you'll get a vague sense that a mob was charged with violence but you'll never get that it was about the 1873 Colfax Massacre - the single deadliest instance of violence during Reconstruction and one that occurred because of an election