Oct. 31, 2022

226. Cross-examining Washington's Heir with Prof. Gerard Magliocca

226. Cross-examining Washington's Heir with Prof. Gerard Magliocca
Apple Podcasts podcast player icon
Spotify podcast player icon
Google Podcasts podcast player icon
Amazon Music podcast player icon
Overcast podcast player icon
Castro podcast player icon
Stitcher podcast player icon
PocketCasts podcast player icon
Castbox podcast player icon
Podchaser podcast player icon
TuneIn podcast player icon
Deezer podcast player icon
Pandora podcast player icon
RadioPublic podcast player icon
Podcast Addict podcast player icon
iHeartRadio podcast player icon
Gaana podcast player icon
JioSaavn podcast player icon
Podyssey podcast player icon
Goodpods podcast player icon
RSS Feed podcast player icon

When George Washington wrote his final will in the months before he died in December 1799, he named Bushrod Washington as heir to his papers and to Mount Vernon. He took possession of his uncle’s Virginia plantation when Martha Washington passed away in 1802.

But Bushrod was not as interested in agriculture as George had been. He was a lawyer who later became an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court, where he became a staunch ally of Chief Justice John Marshall.

Yet, like George, Bushrod owned numerous enslaved people and became one of the founding members of the American Colonization Society, an organization dedicated to resettling freed people in Africa.

On today’s show, Professor Gerard Magliocca joins Jim Ambuske to discuss his new book, Washington’s Heir: The Life of Justice Bushrod Washington, published by Oxford University Press in 2022. Magliocca is the Samuel R. Rosen Professor at the Robert H. McKinney School of Law at Indiana University. 

Gerard N. MaglioccaProfile Photo

Gerard N. Magliocca

Author

I am the Samuel R. Rosen Professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. "Washington's Heir" is my fifth book about American constitutional history.