Tag Archives: authority

Relief Without a Record: Lee’s April 8, 1865 Removals of Anderson, Pickett, and Johnson, and the Problem of Recovering Graded Judgment

Posted on July 29, 2026 by nathanalbright

I. The Question On or about April 8, 1865, one day before the surrender at Appomattox Court House, Robert E. Lee removed three general officers from command in the Army of Northern Virginia: Lieutenant General Richard Heron Anderson, commanding the … Continue reading →

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Telling Recovery from Nostalgia in Institutional Reform

Posted on July 10, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract. Five papers have established that a body’s stored founding fixes its verdict on reform before any reform is named, and that exposure of the storage does not dismantle it. What remains is the instrument. This paper assembles the four … Continue reading →

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Higher Education and the Imagined Golden Age

Posted on July 10, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract. The reform series already presumes that universities misremember what they are for. This paper supplies the memory theory behind that presumption. The idealized past of the American university—a golden age of liberal learning, disinterested, unified, and later betrayed—is set … Continue reading →

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Ecclesiology: Remembering the Fellowship’s Origins

Posted on July 10, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract. The general theory holds that a body’s stored founding fixes its verdict on reform before any reform is named. This paper applies the theory to the case nearest at hand and least available for disinterested handling: the fellowship, which … Continue reading →

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White Paper 6: The Ineffectual Sentinel: Mr. Belding and the Comedy of Authority That Never Arrives

Posted on July 4, 2026 by nathanalbright

Isolating the Disarming of the One Figure Charged with Imposing Consequence Preliminary note on task. This paper does one thing. It takes the single mechanism the Prolegomenon named — the disarming of the one figure charged with imposing consequence — … Continue reading →

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Equipped to Equip: Leadership for the Building of the Body

Posted on June 28, 2026 by nathanalbright

[Note:  This is the prepared text for a split sermon given to the United Church of God congregation in Portland, OR on Sabbath, June 27, 2026.] Part One: “Equipping the Ministry” — The 2026 General Conference of Elders Brethren, I … Continue reading →

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The Sabbath They Keep and the Sabbath They Broke: Irony, Liability, and Religious Freedom in EEOC v. Hatch Trick, Inc.

Posted on June 17, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary In May 2026 the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued an Austin-area Chick-fil-A franchisee, Hatch Trick, Inc., alleging that the operator fired a manager rather than continue accommodating her seventh-day Sabbath observance. The employee, Laurel Torode, is a … Continue reading →

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Structure Over Personality: Jefferson Davis, the Department System, and the Western Command Problem

Posted on June 16, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract The case studies assembled in this volume have proceeded dyad by dyad, treating each relationship between Jefferson Davis and a general as the unit of analysis. This paper deliberately reverses that lens. It asks whether the recurring Confederate failures … Continue reading →

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The Fateful Elevation: Jefferson Davis, John Bell Hood, and the Destruction of the Army of Tennessee

Posted on June 16, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract The decision to replace Joseph E. Johnston with John Bell Hood before Atlanta in July 1864, and the catastrophe that followed in Tennessee that winter, together constitute the most consequential single command decision Jefferson Davis made in the Western … Continue reading →

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The Favorites: Jefferson Davis, Albert Sidney Johnston, Leonidas Polk, and the Patronage of Friendship

Posted on June 16, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract The preceding studies examined relationships that failed through distrust, that were sustained too long through loyalty, or that were poisoned by wounded vanity. This paper turns to the obverse: the generals whom Jefferson Davis favored from the outset on … Continue reading →

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