John Willis Menard (April 3, 1838 – October 8, 1893) was a federal government employee, poet, newspaper publisher and politician born in Kaskaskia, Illinois to parents who were Louisiana Creoles from New Orleans.

After moving to New Orleans, on November 3, 1868, Menard was the first black man ever elected to the United States House of Representatives.^[1] His opponent contested his election, and opposition to his election prevented him from being seated in Congress.

First Black elected to Congress John W. Menard, defeated a white candidate, 5,107 to 2,833, in an election in Louisiana’s Second Congressional District to fill an unexpired term in the Fortieth Congress. U.S. Grant elected president with Black voters in the South providing the decisive margin. Grant received a minority of the white votes in defeating Democrat Horatio Seymour, 3,015,071 votes to 2,709,613.

Sources: blackfacts.com , wiki

So, among other things, the 1873 Act has been dormant and is now apparently just one silly nudge away from waking up to say boo not only to Women but to anyone that needs what might be considered a controversial drug.

If you would like to read the entire post, please go to encyclopedia.com. I was particularly interested in the highlighted section below, and again, Alito brings back the feeling of something wicked coming!

At the turn of the century, 24 states had enacted their own versions of the Comstock Act, many of which were more stringent than the federal statute.

The Comstock Law itself was recodified and reenacted several times in the twentieth century, and prosecutions for violations of the federal statute continued even as Americans became increasingly diverse and tolerant. As a result, several challenges were made to the constitutionality of the Comstock Law, most of them on first amendment grounds. To the surprise of many observers, the U.S Supreme Court continued to uphold the Comstock Law into the 1960s. United States v. Zuideveld, 316 F.2d 873, 875-76, 881 (7th Cir. 1963).

The fate of the Comstock Law began to change, however, when the Supreme Court announced its decision in miller v. california, 413 U.S. 15, 93 S. Ct. 2607, 37 L. Ed. 2d 419 (1973). In Miller the Supreme Court ruled that material is obscene if (1) the work, taken as a whole by an average person applying contemporary community standards, appeals to the prurient interest; (2) the work depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and (3) the work, when taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Although the Comstock Law was never challenged on grounds that it violated the Miller standards for obscenity, the Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional in 1983.

In Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., 463 U.S. 60, 103 S. Ct. 2875, 77 L. Ed. 2d 469 (1983), the Supreme Court re-examined the reasons underlying the Comstock Law (then codified at 39 USCA § 3001) in light of the First Amendment standards governing commercial speech, which allow the government to regulate false, deceptive, and misleading advertisements if the regulation is supported by a substantial governmental interest. The Court concluded that the Comstock Law did not meet this burden. The government’s interest in purging all mailboxes of advertisements for contraceptives is more than offset, the Court said, by the harm that results in denying the mailbox owners the right to receive truthful information bearing on their ability to practice birth control or start a family.

“We have previously made clear,” the Court emphasized, “that a restriction of this scope is more extensive than the Constitution permits, for the government may not reduce the adult population … to reading only what is fit for children.”

Source: encyclopedia

1507 – Leonardo DaVinci was commissioned by the husband of Lisa Gherardini to paint her. The work is known as the Mona Lisa.

1631 – The Reverend John Eliot arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was the first Protestant minister to dedicate himself to the conversion of Native Americans to Christianity.

1793 – Stephen F. Austin was born. He was the principal founder of Texas.

1796 – John Adams was elected the 2nd U.S. President.

1839 – The first Opium War between China and Britain erupted.

1892 – The first automatic telephone went into service at LaPorte, IN. The device was invented by Almon Strowger.

1900 – The first automobile show in the United States opened at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

1903 – Panama proclaimed its independence from Colombia.

1911 – Chevrolet Motor Car Company was founded by Louis Chevrolet and William C. Durant.

1934 – The first race track in California opened under a new pari-mutuel betting law.

1941 – U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Grew warned that the Japanese may be planning a sudden attack on the U.S.

1952 – Frozen bread was offered for sale for the first time in a supermarket in Chester, NY.

1953 – The Rules Committee of organized baseball restored the sacrifice fly. The rule had not been used since 1939.

1957 – Sputnik II was launched by the Soviet Union. It was the second manmade satellite to be put into orbit and was the first to put an animal into space, a dog named Laika.

1973 – The U.S. launched the Mariner 10 spacecraft. On March 29,

1974 it became the first spacecraft to reach the planet Mercury.

1979 – Five members of the Communist Workers’ Party are shot to death in broad daylight at an anti-Ku Klux Klan rally in Greensboro, NC. Eight others were wounded. 

1986 – The Ash-Shiraa, pro-Syrian Lebanese magazine, first broke the story of U.S. arms sales to Iran to secure the release of seven American hostages. The story turned into the Iran-Contra affair.

1987 – China told the U.S. that it would halt the sale of arms to Iran.

1991 – Israeli and Palestinian representatives held their first-ever face-to-face talks in Madrid, Spain.

1992 – Carol Moseley-Braun became the first African-American woman U.S. senator. 

1994 – Susan Smith of Union, SC, was arrested for drowning her two sons. Nine days earlier Smith had claimed that the children had been abducted by a black carjacker.

1995 – U.S. President Clinton dedicated a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery to the 270 victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

1998 – Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, died at the age of 83.

1998 – A state-run newspaper in Iraq urged the country to prepare for to battle “the U.S. monster.”

1998 – Minnesota elected Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a former pro wrestler, as its governor.

2002 – At Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, 777 people assembled a 58,435 square foot jigsaw puzzle with 21,600 pieces.

2003 – In Kabul, Afghanistan, a post-Taliban draft constitution was unveiled.

2005 – Walt Disney Pictures released “Chicken Little.” It was the first Disney film completely created with computer animation.

2014 – In New York City, One World Trade Center opened for business.