Sometimes I think that I should write a second edition of my Bingham biography. The book came out a dozen years ago, and there are issues that I left on the cutting room floor then that deserve more attention now (birthright citizenship and Section 3 disqualification, for example). There is also more to say about Bingham’s work in Japan as America’s ambassador, as described in an excellent book by Sam Kidder after my book was published.
For example, in 1881, Bingham wrote the Secretary of State about Japan’s new Constitution. He touted that document’s requirement of compulsory education for all children, “thereby in effect declaring the equality of all before the law, and the right of each to the equal protection of the laws.” This is, I think, the only time that Bingham explicitly connected education with equality, which of course is worth pondering in the context of our Supreme Court’s cases on education and race.