Books

Red Shift: How State Legislatures Dismantled the Right to Vote, in preparation, with support from:
Library of Congress Kluge Fellowship, 2022
HBCU Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies, 2026-2026
Steven M. Polan Fellowship, Brennan Center for Justice, 2026-2026

Hidden Laws: How State Constitutions Stabilize American Politics. Yale University Press, 2021

Articles

“For the Punishment of Crime: Slavery, Indenture, and Convict Servitude under Antebellum Northern State Constitutions.” Rutgers University Law Review, 77 (2025), forthcoming

“Rail Liquor: Railroad Expansion, Social Movement Strategy, and the Nationalization of Prohibition Law, 1865-1920,” Journal of Policy History, 37.3 (2025): 178-198.

“Federal Judges, States Legislators, and State Constitutional Voting Rights Rollback.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism , 54.3 (2024): 465–486m

“State Constitutions, Fair Districting, and Republican Party Entrenchment.” New York University Law Review, 99 (2024): 318-343.

“Lincoln, Douglass, Fugitive Slave Law, and Constitutional Evil.” Maryland Law Review 83.1 (2023): 281-293.

“The Lost Clause: Reinterpreting the Declaration’s Silence on the Atlantic Slave Trade.” Polity, 55.1 (2023), winner 2023 Polity Prize

“Judicial Power and the Shifting Purpose of Article V,” Studies in American Political Development (2023), with David Bateman and Stephan Stohler

“Federal Experimentation through State Constitutional Initiatives,” Nebraska Law Review, 101.1 (2022): 101-122.

“Rethinking Self-Reliance: Emerson on Mobbing, War, and Abolition.” The Journal of Politics 83.1 (2021): 137-149, winner 2018 McWilliams Award for Best Faculty Paper in Political Theory, NPSA

“Counter-Majoritarian Constitutional Hardball.” Maryland Law Review, 81.1 (2021): 380-393

“Solitude Before Society: Emerson on Self-Reliance, Abolitionism, and Moral Suasion.” Polity 48.1 (2016): 29–54

Book Chapters
“State Constitutional Declarations of Rights in the American Revolution,” Declaring the Revolution: America’s Printed Path to Independence, University of Chicago Press, 2026, forthcoming

Review Essays

Introduction to roundtable on Prohibition, the Constitution, and States’ Rights, by Sean Beienburg, Federal History, (2025)

Review of The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms, by Allison LaCroix, American Political Thought, (2024), forthcoming

Review of Progressive States’ Rights: The Forgotten History of Federalism, by Sean Beienburg, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, (2024)

Review of The Democracy Amendments: Constitutional Reforms to Save the United States by John J. Davenport, Review of Politics, (2024)

Review of The Antebellum Origins of the Modern Constitution by Simon Gilhooley, Perspectives on Politics, 19.4 (2021): 1314-1315

“The State Constitutions’ Influence on American Political Development.” The Journal of Politics 81.4 (2019): 85-89

“The Critical Minute: Recording and Remembering Early American Political Thought.” The Tulsa Law Review 54.2 (2019): 367-73

Commentary

“Statehood, Partisanship, and the Constitution.” The Constitutionalist, May 14, 2021

“Congress Must Fix a Fatal Flaw in the D.C. Statehood Bill.” Washington Post, April 13, 2021

“Is the Two-Century Battle for D.C. Statehood Finally Near an End?” Washington Post, March 23, 2021

“The Best Way to Secure the Capitol is to Make D.C. a State.” Washington Post, January 13, 2021

“Republicans’ Supreme Court Gambit May Backfire. Here’s How.” The Washington Post, September 24, 2020

“The Person Who Changes the Constitution.” The Atlantic, January 17, 2020

“D.C. Statehood is Back on the House’s Agenda. Here’s Why It Faces an Uphill Battle.” Washington Post, September 19, 2019

“The Equal Rights Amendment Is One State from Ratification. Now What?” The Washington Post, June 20, 2018

“Trump wants to change the rules of citizenship. Here are three reasons his proposal might be unconstitutional.” The Washington Post, October 31, 2018