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Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Law

Slavery In The United States: Persons Or Property?, Paul Finkelman Jan 2012

Slavery In The United States: Persons Or Property?, Paul Finkelman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Racial Cartels And The Thirteenth Amendment Enforcement Power, Darrell A. H. Miller Jan 2012

Racial Cartels And The Thirteenth Amendment Enforcement Power, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Thirteenth Amendment And The Regulation Of Custom, Darrell A. H. Miller Jan 2012

Thirteenth Amendment And The Regulation Of Custom, Darrell A. H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

Custom is an underdeveloped concept in Thirteenth Amendment jurisprudence. While a substantial body of work has explored the technical meaning of custom as it applies to § 1983 and, to a lesser extent, Congress’s power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, few scholars have offered sustained treatment of custom as a way to understand the meaning and scope of the Thirteenth Amendment. This gap exists despite the fact that Congress specifically identified custom as a subject of regulation when it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and despite the fact that the Thirteenth Amendment operates directly on the behavior of …


States’ Rights, Southern Hypocrisy, And The Crisis Of The Union, Paul Finkelman Jan 2012

States’ Rights, Southern Hypocrisy, And The Crisis Of The Union, Paul Finkelman

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the arguments used by southern secessionists to explain why they left the Union. The article demonstrates that support for "states' rights" was not the main reason for secession, and that on the contrary, most of the slave states left the Union because the free states were exercising their states' rights in opposing slavery. The main reason for secession, as this essay shows, was the desire to protect slavery and to create a new nation, self-consciously based on slavery and white supremacy. This article began as part of an AALS legal history section program in 2010 and is …


A Political Show Trial In The Northern District: Oberlin-Wellington Fugitive Slave Rescue Case, Paul Finkelman Jan 2012

A Political Show Trial In The Northern District: Oberlin-Wellington Fugitive Slave Rescue Case, Paul Finkelman

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter from Justice and Legal Change on the Shores of Lake Erie, examines the first important cases ever heard by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. The cases, known as the Oberlin-Wellington Fugitive Slave Cases -- stemmed out of the rescue of a fugitive slave from the custody of a professional slave catcher. The fugitive was seized in Oberlin, and taken to nearby Wellington, and held in hotel while the slave catchers waiting for a train to take them to Columbus. Meanwhile, a mob -- consisting mostly of Oberlin residents, including many Oberlin College …