I spoke yesterday to a the Indianapolis Federalist Society Lawyers Chapter. I gave an overview of America 3.0. I focused on the past and future of the legal profession for this mostly lawyer crowd. It was a very good session, with lively Q&A, with some digressions about contemporary politics, especially Illinois politics.
It was great to see law school friends from IU Bloomington. We were among the founders of the Federalist Society student chapter there. We caused outrage by our mere existence at the law school.
Good times, man.
I also had the chance to visit with a friend-of-a-friend at the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. It is a real pleasure to walk into a place where Milton Friedman’s picture is up all over the place. They do top quality studies of the effects of school choice. If you are interested in education reform, or education transformation, be sure to check them out.
I had some extra time to walk around downtown. It was a beautiful day, and Indianapolis looked great. I only get back there occasionally, and each time I do it seems like the city has substantially improved. It has become livelier, hipper. Good government by conservative Republican governors, and a Republican mayor, is working its magic, apparently.
I had breakfast at Cafe Patachou, which lived up to its billing. The excellent sausage in the omelette was from Smoking Goose. This is the kind of high-end food purveyor that did not exist in Indianapolis when I first spent time there over twenty years ago.
I stopped by the capital. It is a beautiful building, an unequivocal statement, in limestone and marble, of pride and confidence in state and nation from the generation that won the Civil War. The capital in Madison, Wisconsin is similar, as are many of the county seat court houses around the Midwest, such as the splendid one in Lafayette, indiana. These buildings are John Philip Sousa marches in stone.
I look forward to a similar era of jaunty pride and cultural confidence in the first generation of America 3.0!
Out in front of the Indiana statehouse there is a statue of Oliver P. Morton, the Governor of Indiana during the Civil War. It is one of my favorite civic monuments. Morton acted with extraordinary aggressiveness in the Union cause, well beyond his Constitutional powers. But his side won, so he got the statue. The plaque on the back says:
Oliver Perry Morton
Born in Wayne Co. Indiana August 4, 1823.
Died in Indianapolis November 1, 1877.
Aged 54 years 2 months and 25 days.
Admitted to the Bar in 1847.
Served as Governor of Indiana from January 18, 1861 to March 4, 1867.
Served as U.S. Senator from Indiana from March 4, 1867 until his death November 1, 1877.
In all ways and at all times the friend of the Union soldier.
The friend of the country.
The upholder of Abraham Lincoln.
The defender of the flag and the Union of the States.
Patriot. Statesman. Lover of Liberty.
Heroic in heart.
Inflexible in purpose and ever to be known in history as
The Great War Governor
And the men in Union blue were not sticklers when it came to crushing secession in the South and the Copperheads back home. Desperate times demanded desperate measures. As is usual in Anglospheric countries, after emergencies pass, the rule of law reasserted itself. May it always be so.
The Macoupin County Courthouse in Carlinville, IL is also a monument to this age of wonderful structures. My wife has relatives down there and that building really catches your eye since everything around it is so flat.
http://www.carlinvillechamber.com/courthouse.html
Beautiful piece of neo-classical architecture. The only thing missing is a couple of bronze lions atop the pediments next to the steps. Although, being the Midwest, statues of farmers, maybe a man and a woman, each holding a bundle of wheat and corn might be more appropriate.