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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Still Too Close To Call? Rethinking Stampp's "The Concept Of A Perpetual Union", Daniel W. Hamilton Jun 2015

Still Too Close To Call? Rethinking Stampp's "The Concept Of A Perpetual Union", Daniel W. Hamilton

Akron Law Review

In a classic article in the Journal of American History, which was based on his presidential address to the Organization of American Historians in 1978, the great Civil War historian Kenneth Stampp made the claim that the arguments in favor of the constitutionality of secession made by the Southern states were as strong, if not stronger than the constitutional arguments made, then and now, in opposition to secession. Stampp is to my mind the greatest Civil War historian of the 20th century and his views on secession remain required reading and are cited routinely today. This is not to say …


Symposium: Union And States' Rights: Secession, 150 Years After Sumter, Preface, Neil H. Cogan Jun 2015

Symposium: Union And States' Rights: Secession, 150 Years After Sumter, Preface, Neil H. Cogan

Akron Law Review

A preface to the four papers presented at the Annual Meeting of the Section on Legal History, American Association of Law Schools, held on January 7, 2011, in San Francisco.


Civil And Common Law: A Historical Analysis Of Colonial And Postcolonial Canada, Patrick S. Stroud Apr 2015

Civil And Common Law: A Historical Analysis Of Colonial And Postcolonial Canada, Patrick S. Stroud

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Legal historians divide European law into two principal families: common law (British law) and civil law (continental European law). Common law judges favor cases; courts “discover” law on a case-by-case basis and those cases make precedents for future ruling. Civil law courts favor codes; courts compare cases to existing laws and those laws control judges’ rulings. The two rarely interact, save one prominent example: Canada. British common law supposedly superseded French legal traditions in colonial Canada. But is history so binary? Did British common law truly “conquer” French civil law? Through analysis of Canadian legal history, this article demonstrates how …


Unilateral Non-Colonial Secession And The Criteria For Statehood In International Law, Glen Anderson Jan 2015

Unilateral Non-Colonial Secession And The Criteria For Statehood In International Law, Glen Anderson

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The following article examines the interactions between the right of peoples to unilateral non-colonial (“UNC”) secession and the criteria for statehood in international law. In this respect a three-point thesis is developed. First, it is argued that the law of self-determination has resulted in a less strict application of the criteria for statehood based on effectiveness, particularly the effective government criterion. This means that a state created by UNC secession pursuant to the law of self-determination will not have its statehood called into question if lacks an effective government. Second, it is argued that the declaratory approach to recognition is …