History Commons^™

Judicial Review As An Instrument Of Natural Rights Theory: An Intellectual History, James M. Masnov

Dissertations and Theses

The unique and antidemocratic power of judicial review by the United States Supreme Court is not a bug, but a feature. Its role was critical in establishing and affirming a separation of powers horizontally among the federal branches as well as vertically between the federal government and the individual states. More than this, the Court's power of judicial review acts as an instrument of rights theory and is informed by a rich and rarely-discussed intellectual history. Though judicial review as a mode of constitutional law and the legal history surrounding it has been discussed by various legal scholars, political scientists, …

Emergent Women's Global Political Leadership: Progress Despite Constraints, Aoife Meehan

Dissertations and Theses

“Emergent Women’s Global Political Leadership: Progress Despite Constraints” seeks to trace why and how female political leaders emerge at the global level. Evidence points to certain cultural factors, often expressed by laws, constraining or supporting women as they seek political advancement. Data shows women leaders are emerging more and more, though slowly, as political leaders around the world. Reviewing women’s participation and representation regionally and nationally in parliaments, as ministers, and as heads of governments and states confirms that women can and do emerge as political leaders. Finally, learning about and examining women leaders themselves, their style and substance, proves …

Charles A. Moose: Race, Community Policing, And Portland's First African American Police Chief, Douglas Jon Kenck-Crispin

Dissertations and Theses

In 1993, Charles Moose became Portland, Oregon's first black police chief. A nationally recognized student of the developing theories of community policing, Chief Moose's promotion was also hoped to help strengthen the diversity of the Portland Police Bureau. Ultimately, Portlanders were unable to look past Moose's public outbursts and demeanor and recognize his accomplishments. As a city, they missed an opportunity.

This thesis uses transcripts of speeches and policy papers to present some political history to the reader, but also letters to the mayor's office, letters to the editor and the like to consider the social history of 1990's Portland. …

"On This, We Shall Build": The Struggle For Civil Rights In Portland, Oregon 1945-1953, Justin Legrand Vipperman

Dissertations and Theses

Generally, Oregon historians begin Portland Civil Rights history with the development of Vanport and move quickly through the passage of the state's public accommodations law before addressing the 1960s and 70s. Although these eras are ripe with sources and contentious experiences, 1945 to 1953 provide a complex struggle for civil rights in Portland, Oregon. This time period demonstrates the rise of local leaders, wartime racial tensions, and organizational efforts used to combat inequality. 1945 marked a watershed moment in Portland Civil Rights history exhibiting intergroup collaboration and interracial cooperation converging to eventually provide needed legislation. Although discrimination continued after 1953, …

On The Poverty, Rise, And Demise Of International Criminal Law, Tiphaine Dickson

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation in four essays critically examines the emergence of international criminal courts: their international political underpinnings, context, and the impact of their political production in relation to liberal legalism, liberal political theory, and history. The essays conceive of international criminal legal bodies both as political projects at their inception and as institutions that deny their own political provenance. The work is primarily one of political theory at the intersection of history, international relations, international criminal law, and the politics of memory. The first essay questions Nuremberg's legacy on the United States' exceptionalist view of international law and its deviant …

"Dangerous Subjects": James D. Saules And The Enforcement Of The Color Line In Oregon, Kenneth Robert Coleman

Dissertations and Theses

In June of 1844, James D. Saules, a black sailor turned farmer living in Oregon's Willamette Valley, was arrested and convicted for allegedly inciting Indians to violence against a settler named Charles E. Pickett. Three years earlier, Saules had deserted the United States Exploring Expedition, married a Chinookan woman, and started a freight business on the Columbia River. Less than two months following Saules' arrest, Oregon's Provisional Government passed its infamous "Lash Law," banning the immigration of free black people to the region. While the government repealed the law in 1845, Oregon passed a territorial black exclusion law in 1849 …

The Genesis Of Portland's Forest Park : Evolution Of An Urban Wilderness, Elizabeth M. Provost

Dissertations and Theses

Portland, Oregon, is steward to a 5,126 acre wilderness park called Forest Park. The park's size and proximity to downtown make it a dominate feature of Portland's skyline. Despite its urban location the park provides respite from city life with its seventy miles of trails, which wind through stands of Douglas fir, western red cedar, and western hemlock. Portland citizens enjoy this easy access to nature as well as the park's health and environmental benefits.

Postwar Vice Crime And Political Corruption In Portland, Robert Christian Donnelly

Dissertations and Theses

The present thesis describes the connection between political corruption and vice crime in Portland as it was portrayed by media and public institutions and agencies in the 1940s and 1950s. The main body of the thesis discusses attempts to rid Portland of its vice problem through the City Club's crusade against crime and crooked politicians in the late 1940s and early 1950s and Mayor Dorothy McCullough Lee's subsequent reform movements against gambling and prostitution. The thesis will analyze The Oregonian's expose' on bootlegging, gambling, prostitution and links drawn by the newspaper to the Teamster's Union and Oregon politicians. From there, …

Portland Student Services, Inc. : The Establishment Of Student-Run Housing In Portland, Oregon, 1969-1971, Michael Keith Brewin

Dissertations and Theses

Portland student Services, Inc. (PSS), a non-profit student housing corporation, was created under circumstances that were especially arduous. Although thousands of students attending Portland State University in the late 1960s needed housing, state law prohibited the university from providing residential facilities . Many students lived in dilapidated apartment buildings in downtown Portland and faced dislocation from urban renewal programs initiated by the Portland Development Commission. Activists who set out to establish student-run housing also faced hostility from policymakers who resented student-led initiatives in politics and university governance.

However, these dedicated student activists aligned with members of the Portland business community …

Women Of The Tudor Court, 1501-1568, Carol De Witte Bowles

Dissertations and Theses

Writing the history of Tudor women is a difficult task. "Women's lives from the 16th century can rarely be constructed except when these women have had influential connections with notable men.This is no less true for the court women of Tudor England than for other women of the time.

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss some of the more memorable court women of Tudor England who served the queens of Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I, 2 and to determine what impact, if any, they had on their contemporary times and to evaluate their roles in Tudor …

The Sovereign People, Minority Rights And State Judiciaries : An Historical Study Of Tocqueville's Majoritarian Thesis, Erica Goodwin

Dissertations and Theses

In the decade of the 1830's, Alexis de Tocqueville published a perceptive analysis of America in the Jacksonian era, which focused upon the customs, manners and intellectual habits of its citizens, and their social condition as seen through its political institutions. He advanced the proposition--a paradox of democracy--that equality of condition was as compatible with tyranny as with freedom. The social consensus, which stemmed from the wide acceptance of doctrine of equality and common wants and interests, when brought to bear upon legislator and judge, public official, juryman, and the non-conforming individual, he termed the "tyranny of the majority."

Justice Brennan And The Bill Of Rights, David B. Brownhill

Dissertations and Theses

The research problem examined in my thesis is stated clearly in the title: Justice Brennan and The Bill of Rights. In my examination, I relied primarily on Brennan's opinions, and secondarily, on scholarly commentaries authored by Brennan and others. I located the cases through a combination of sources. Initially, I consulted the Harvard Law Reviews' "Supreme Court Term, (1956-1981) Term(s)," which is published annually in its November edition, and then, I turned to the writings by, and about, Brennan my findings show that Brennan's approach in these cases has evolved over the years toward a more absolutist one.

A History Of The Portland Waterfront Between Southwest Clay And Washington Streets, Its Land Use And Legal Problems, Jeffrey G. Carter

Dissertations and Theses

Between 1845 and 1980 the Portland waterfront between southwest Washington and Clay Streets, east of Front Street, metamorphosed from wilderness to trade center, to highway, to inner-city vacant lot. No place in Portland has more graphically illustrated the rapidly changing forces of the modern age in which the city has grown.

For much of its history this stretch of waterfront was mired in law suits. The struggles centered on public versus private ownership. Originally dedicated as public property, but left unimproved by the city, the waterfront was usurped by private investors. Eventually, private owners allowed their property to decay prompting …

Politics Of Land Use : The Lengthy Saga Of Senate Bill 100, Kathleen Joan Zachary

Dissertations and Theses

Theoretical literature on the politics of land use is so limited that original research into the problem was required. The drafting and enactment of Senate Bill 100 by the Fifty-seventh Session of the Oregon Legislature provided the basis for researching my premise of need equals want. The bill designated state land use planning organizational structure.

The Land Use Policy Committee minutes and Legislative minutes were merged with information attained through personal interviews from a variety of participants in the drafting of the Senate Bill 100. Theoretical literature was equally available in Public Administration, Law and Land Use Planning. The Constitutions …

Background To The Second Amendment, John Thomas Nichols

Dissertations and Theses

Research into the background of the Second Amendment is hampered by its relationship to the current highly emotional debate over gun control. Many otherwise useful secondary sources either ignore the issue completely or give accounts which reflect the controversies of the twentieth century rather than those of the eighteenth. Fortunately, however, the Americans of the revolutionary era wrote extensively about the subject.

With independence, the Americans were faced with the problem of organizing and controlling a defense establishment. The new nation was virtually defenseless: the

Continental Army was disbanded and the militia, after years of neglect, emasculated. During the decade …

A Historiography Of The Elizabethan Poor Laws: Late Xixth And Xxth Century Historians, Susan C. Mcnaught

Dissertations and Theses

The Elizabethan poor laws stand as a great work from a dynamic period. How and why they were formulated have been questions which historians have asked for centuries. The discussions of these questions have varied, depending on the personal values and biases which each historian brought to this study. It is generally agreed that a very important function of the historian is interpretation. The study of history is not only a study of the events, but a study of the historians and their differing interpretations of those events.

In the past one hundred years, numerous historians have devoted themselves to …

A Reinterpretation Of The Oregon School Bill Of 1922 : The Concept Of The Common School In Progressive America., Stephen Louis Recken

Dissertations and Theses

The Oregon School Bill of 1922 would have required all school age children to attend public schools. Beginning as an initiative measure sponsored by the Scottish Rite Masons it was passed by the voters in the general election in the Fall of 1922. Shortly after its passage representatives of private and parochial schools began a court battle against the bill which ended in the United States Supreme Court. Affirming the decision of a lower court it declared the Bill to be unconstitutional. While public interest in the Bill was great during the campaign, it soon dwindled and by 1925 the …