Monday, November 21, 2016

Will it be Justice Pryor?

It was the big Federalist Society meeting this weekend in which Justice Scalia was remembered and celebrated.  One of the takeaways is that 11th Circuit Judge William Pyror is quietly the favorite to get Scalia's seat. (Here's a short interview with him from the weekend.) He would be the first 11th Circuit judge to get the nod... 

It's hard to know exactly what PE Trump is thinking here though as he was busy this weekend tweeting about Hamilton.

In the meantime, I repost Judge Milton Hirsch's Constitutional Calendar today, which is really interesting:

On Nov. 21, 1864, in response to a request from Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew asking him to express his condolences, President Lincoln wrote to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow who was believed to have lost five sons during the Civil War.  Lincoln's letter was later printed in the Boston Evening Transcript.  Later still, it was revealed that two, not all five, of Mrs. Bixby's sons died in battle; one deserted, one was honorably discharged, and another either deserted or died a prisoner of war.
 
The authorship of the letter has been debated by scholars, some of whom believe it was written by John Hay, one of Lincoln's secretaries.  The original of the letter was destroyed by Mrs. Bixby, who was a Confederate sympathizer and disliked Lincoln.  Copies of an early forgery circulated for years, causing many people to believe that they had the original letter.
 
None of which matters.  The letter is the finest piece of epistolary prose ever written on this continent, and if Lincoln didn't write it, he meant to.  It serves to remind us that the highest function of political leadership in America's democracy is to inspire us with a regard for those principles that set this country apart.
 
As I do every year on the anniversary of its writing, I take pleasure in sharing this remarkable letter with my friends:
 
"Dear Madam,
 
"I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.  I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.  But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the republic they died to save.  I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
 
"Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
 
"A. Lincoln"

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I heard the blood sacrifice was especially well done this year.

Anonymous said...

Assuming that the Republicans want to pick the worst person possible for the Court (meaning young, intelligent, ideologue) - Pryor is their man.

Anonymous said...

Nobody can compete with the Pryor smirk that you get during OA if he doesn't like your argument. Having that on the Court may be worth the price of admission.

Anonymous said...

I always thought he just needed to get off the bench to take a crap.

Anonymous said...

Kudos to the Dade County Bar for the wonderful bench and Bar conference on Friday at the Miracle Theater. Great turn out and interesting and engaging panels that included many of our finest federal Judges and Magistrate Judges.

Anonymous said...

I attended the conference in DC this past weekend. There were a number of people there who are likely to be federal judges in the next few years. But, as far as the SCOTUS selection goes, it seemed to me that Judge Diane Sykes was the true favorite.