Why Use the Internet for an American History Textbook?

In June, 1996 the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania held that the Communications Decency Act was unconstitutional as violating the constitutional guarantee of free speech. Plaintiffs in this case included the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the American Library Association and a host of other interested and scholarly groups and individual citizens who post materials on the Internet. Janet Reno, in her capacity as Attorney General of the United States, was defendant in this landmark case. The 67 page text may be seen at 929 F. Supp. 824 or downloaded and printed from the ACLU on the Internet. The United States has filed a Notice of Appeal, and in due course this case will be argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. As a lawyer myself -- retired after some forty-five years -- I hope that this case may be accessed via Oyez Oyez, the words traditionally used by the Clerk of the Court to open session.

Oyez Oyez has already performed a valuable function for historians. By this date in 1996 -- September 6 -- it had digitized over fifty cases so that Internet users may hear the voices of counsel arguing their case before the highest court of the land. So far the cases accessible include subjects as diverse as the Commerce Clause, Separation of Powers, Federalism, Religious Freedom/Religious Establishment, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of the Press, Privacy, Racial Equality and Due Process of Law. By way of example, one may listen to the oral arguments of counsel in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States decided on December 14, 1964. A three-judge constitutional test of the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A three-judge District Court had permanently enjoined the motel from discrimination on account of race. This case was one of a long line of cases striking down as unconstitutional those laws enacted principally in the South after Plessy v. Ferguson decided in 1896. It gave the white majority a license to erect barriers blocking African-Americans from joining mainstream America on an equal basis. They still have a long way to go as heard in the oral arguments in Adarand v. Pena decided on June 12, 1995.

I have cited numerous decisions of the Supreme Court in An Abridged History of the United States. In ways not familiar to the vast majority of Americans, their lives have been shaped or changed by decisions of the Supreme Court. Views of the Court often change as the individual justices bring their own agenda with them to the highest court of the land. Seven justices were nominated by Republican presidents and confirmed by the Senate; Chief Justice Rehnquist, and Associate Justices Scalia, O'Conner, Thomas, Kennedy, Stevens and Souter. President Clinton has named two justices; Charles Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

In ACLU v. Reno, et al, at the District Court made Findings of Fact. In part one of them states: "In all, reasonable estimates are that as many as 40 million people around the world can and do access the enormously flexible communications Internet medium. That figure is expected to grow to 200 million Internet users by the year 1999." Approximately 65 percent of them -- 130 million -- will live in the United States.

This is a huge market, and I have made it possible for these users to download An Abridged History of the United States at no charge. I hope Internet users will want to share my knowledge of history. I do not offer this textbook as a scholarly treatise.

I graduated from Yale University in 1942 majoring in International Relations and History, served as a Navy aviator from 1941-1945 -- my carrier was sunk in October, 1944 during the Battle of the Philippine Sea -- and returned to go through law school at the University of Virginia. From 1948 to 1990 I practiced law in San Francisco, principally litigation in the federal courts. In 1985, I started Mercury House from Scratch. It published general interest books on the environment, some aspects of history and current events as well as fiction. Mercury House has published books in translation from French, German, Spanish, Russian, Korean and Greek. As of late 1996 Mercury House had some 150 books in print. I retired as its publisher in 1995 and took a year to write this textbook.

William M. Brinton
San Francisco
06 September 1996




All contents © 1996 William M. Brinton
All photographs © Archive Photos, New York
All film © Archive Film, New York