Tag Archives: slavery

The Stage and the Argument: Political Geography of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate Sites and Their Place in Antebellum Illinois Politics

Posted on September 16, 2026 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary The seven joint debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas in the late summer and autumn of 1858 are usually remembered for what was said. Where it was said matters just as much. The debates were held … Continue reading →

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Paper 10: The Merchandise of Souls: Revelation 18:11–13 and the Economic Anatomy of Empire

Posted on September 10, 2026 by nathanalbright

The Bounds of Their Habitation, Tier 1, Cluster D Abstract Clusters A through C treated the imperial configuration, its proportions, and its speech. Cluster D turns to anatomy and end. This paper takes the cargo list of Revelation 18:11–13 as … Continue reading →

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The Unexamined Title: Institutions Defended in Operation Whose Origin Is Never Litigated

Posted on August 14, 2026 by nathanalbright

Paper 2 of Five Abstract This paper names a general form: the institution whose daily operation is argued about at length and whose original acquisition is never argued about at all. Defenders and critics alike may contest how the institution … Continue reading →

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Functional Subtraction: Diminishing Without Deleting

Posted on August 14, 2026 by nathanalbright

Paper 1 of Five Abstract This paper names a form of argumentative behavior that has been noticed piecemeal across several literatures and treated as a general object in none of them: the setting aside of an authoritative text by a … Continue reading →

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What Was Not Said: A Prolegomenon to Reading Absence in Theological Controversy

Posted on August 14, 2026 by nathanalbright

§1. The Problem of the Settled Verdict 1.1 Two ways a field closes A field can close in two ways, and from the outside they look the same. It can be exhausted: every question worth asking has been asked, the … Continue reading →

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Comparable Cases: The Jefferson–Hemings Question Against Other Founding-Era Paternity Claims

Posted on August 9, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract The Jefferson–Hemings case is frequently discussed as though it were singular — either as a uniquely well-documented scandal or as a uniquely aggressive scholarly imposition. Neither framing survives comparison. This paper surveys the founding generation for structurally similar claims: … Continue reading →

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Evidentiary Standards and the Jefferson–Hemings Question: Distinguishing Genetic Findings, Circumstantial Inference, and Family Tradition

Posted on August 9, 2026 by nathanalbright

Abstract Public and institutional discourse increasingly treats three distinct propositions as a single settled fact: that Thomas Jefferson fathered the children of Sally Hemings, that the 1998 Y-chromosome study demonstrated this, and that Jefferson and Hemings concluded a negotiated agreement … Continue reading →

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Paper 4 — A Cracker Cowtown at War: Households, Slavery, and Survival, 1840s–1870s

Posted on July 20, 2026 by nathanalbright

Introduction Between the end of the Second Seminole War and the close of Reconstruction, Tampa grew from a garrison village into a small Southern town—and then was nearly unmade by war. This paper follows that arc from below: not through … Continue reading →

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Paper 3 — Fort Brooke, the Enslaved, and the Seminoles: The American Frontier from Its Margins, 1824–1860s

Posted on July 20, 2026 by nathanalbright

Introduction When the United States built Fort Brooke at the mouth of the Hillsborough River in 1824, it planted the seed of the city that would become Tampa. The standard telling makes this a story of national expansion: a frontier … Continue reading →

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White Paper: The Pattern of Paired Free and Slave State Admissions (1820–1850) and the Delays It Imposed on American Statehood

Posted on December 6, 2025 by nathanalbright

Executive Summary Between 1820 and 1850, the United States Senate became the institutional battleground for maintaining a sectional equilibrium between free and slave states. This equilibrium—never formally codified but fiercely enforced through political custom—dictated that every new free state must … Continue reading →

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