New York State Assembly expels five socialist assemblymen

The New York State Assembly, the state’s lower house, expelled five duly elected assemblymen from the Socialist Party over their political affiliation on January 7, 1920. The US was in the midst of the first Red Scare, a panic resulting from the ascendancy of the Bolsheviks in Russia, which resulted in the repression of socialists across the country. The result of the expulsion vote was 140-6. Thus, Assemblymen August Claessens, Samuel A. DeWitt, Samuel Orr, Charles Solomon and Louis Waldman were removed from their posts.

Learn more about the expulsions from the Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Gorbachev becomes USSR leader

On March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, following the death of Konstantin Chernenko. He soon announced that he would hold arms-reduction negotiations in Geneva with the United States. Gorbachev also used his tenure to liberalize the economy and social structure of the USSR, eventually leading to the abatement of the Soviet Union. In 1990, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

Read documents and interviews from the 1990 USA-USSR Summit.

Confederate Constitution adopted

On March 11, 1861, seven former US states adopted the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, which closely followed the language, if not necessarily the purport, of the original US Constitution. Section 9 (4) of the Confederate Constitution read "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed," enshrining the right to own slaves as fundamental law.

ICC holds first meeting

The war crimes court known as the International Criminal Court (ICC) swore in its first batch of judges on March 11, 2003. The meeting took place eight months after the ratification of the court's Rome Statute. Then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said of the occasion: It has taken mankind many years to reach this moment. By the solemn undertaking they have given here in open court, these 11 men and seven women, representing all regions of the world and many different cultures and legal traditions, have made themselves the embodiment of our collective conscience. Learn more about the work of the ICC.