Weekend Roundup

• In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Ian Ayres (Yale Law School) and John Fabian Witt (Yale Law School) offer Democrats a "Plan B" for the Supreme Court. "'Court packing' is one of the most controversial threads in the history of American politics," but what about "court balancing"?

• More praise for the legal historical scholarship on emoluments by Georgetown law professor John Mikhail.  H/t: David Edmon.  Also Seth Barrett Tillman and Josh Blackmon respond to Judge Messitte’s opinion in that Emoluments Clause decision on the Volokh Conspiracy.

• At the intersection of legal and medical history, Atlas Obscura has this piece on the grim profession of  the "railway surgeon" in the 19th-early 20th century.  

• JSTOR has updated its list of nine books from the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History now available on the platform.

• Bennett Liebman, Albany Law School, has posted Union College, Schenectady and the New York State Lottery in the 19th Century, a paper that especially treats how the lottery “affected the operations of Union College in Schenectady, New York" before the Civil War.

• Robert J. Miller, Arizona State University, will speak on “Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny and Oregon” at the Coos History Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon, on August 7.  More.

• ICYMI: In The Smithsonian: The Massacre of Black Sharecroppers That Led the Supreme Court to Curb the Racial Disparities of the Justice System.  Watch the home movies of FDR's secretary, Missy LeHand.  A visit to the Museum of Tort Law.  Also: an unpardonable offense.

Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.