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Absentee Soldier Voting In Civil War Law And Politics, David A. Collins
Absentee Soldier Voting In Civil War Law And Politics, David A. Collins
Wayne State University Dissertations
During the Civil War, twenty northern states changed their laws to permit absent soldiers to vote. Before enactment of these statutes, state laws had tethered balloting to the voter's community and required in-person participation by voters. Under the new laws, eligible voters - as long as they were soldiers - could cast ballots in distant military encampments, far from their neighbors and community leaders. This dissertation examines the legal conflicts that arose from this phenomenon and the political causes underlying it.
Legally, the laws represented an abrupt change, contrary to earlier scholarship viewing them as culminating a gradual process of …
Minor Courts And Communities At The Frontier: The Justice Of The Peace In Early Missouri, Bonnie Aileen Speck
Minor Courts And Communities At The Frontier: The Justice Of The Peace In Early Missouri, Bonnie Aileen Speck
Wayne State University Dissertations
ABSTRACT
MINOR COURTS AND COMMUNITIES AT THE FRONTIER JUSTICES OF THE PEACE IN EARLY MISSOURI
by
BONNIE A. SPECK
May 2011
Advisor: Sandra VanBurkleo
Major: American Legal and Constitutional History
Degree: History
This study focused on local and county courts operated by Missouri's justices of the peace between the Louisiana Purchase and roughly 1875. Its purpose was to investigate the role of township justices’ courts and county courts of commissioners in terms of interactions with local residents; effects of rulings and other court actions on everyday affairs; and wider impacts on Missouri society. Sources included territorial and …