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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

The Role Of Law In U.S. History Textbooks, Russ Versteeg Apr 2023

The Role Of Law In U.S. History Textbooks, Russ Versteeg

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article analyzes the references to law found in three standard U.S. History textbooks: (1) ALAN BRINKLEY, AMERICAN HISTORY CONNECTING WITH THE PAST 745 (McGraw-Hill Educ., 15th ed. 2015); (2) ERIC FONER, GIVE ME LIBERTY! AN AMERICAN HISTORY 461 (Steve Forman et al. eds., 5th ed. 2017); and (3) DAVID GOLDFIELD ET AL., THE AMERICAN JOURNEY: A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES (7th ed. Combined vol. 2014, 2011, 2008). The Article includes a quantitative analysis of topics (i.e., tabulating the topics that appear most frequently in the texts arranged chronologically) as well as summaries of those topics. It also discusses …


The Faces Of The Second Amendment Outside The Home, Take Three: Critiquing The Circuit Courts Use Of History-In-Law, Patrick J. Charles Apr 2019

The Faces Of The Second Amendment Outside The Home, Take Three: Critiquing The Circuit Courts Use Of History-In-Law, Patrick J. Charles

Cleveland State Law Review

This article seeks to critique the circuit courts’ varying history-in-law approaches, as well as to provide advice on the proper role that history-in-law plays when examining the scope of the Second Amendment outside the home. This article sets forth to accomplish this task in three parts. Part I argues why history-in-law is appropriate when adjudicating Second Amendment decisions outside the home. Part II examines the benefits and burdens of utilizing history-in-law as a method of constitutional interpretation, while breaking down the alternative approaches employed by circuit courts when adjudicating Second Amendment decisions outside the home. Lastly, Part III offers practical …


Inseparable: Perspective Of Senator Daniel Webster, Ernest M. Oleksy Dec 2017

Inseparable: Perspective Of Senator Daniel Webster, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

Considering the hypersensitivity that their nation has towards race relations, it is often ineffable to contemporary Americans as to how anyone could have argued against abolition in the 19th century. However, by taking the perspective of Senator Daniel Webster speaking to an audience of disunionist-abolitionists, proslaveryites, and various shades of moderates, numerous points of contention will be brought to light as to why chattel slavery persisted so long in the U.S. Focal points of dialogue will include the Narrative of Frederick Douglass, the "positive good" claims of Senator John C. Calhoun, the disunionism of William Lloyd Garrison, and the defense …


The Founders And Slavery, Arthur R. Landever Nov 2006

The Founders And Slavery, Arthur R. Landever

Law Faculty Presentations and Testimony

The point of my talk is that our founders, who our tradition praises profusely of course, as men on Mount Olympus, had moral blinders on. I'm going to talk about key founders. Then I'm going to talk about the key English case, decided in 1772, Somerset v. Stuart. Then I'm going to talk about the Compromises of the 1770s and 1780s. Then I'm going to talk about what we can and can't learn from history. Then I'm going to consider what our generation is doing in the 21st century, considering what might shock our own descendants, two hundred years from …


Suspending The Rule Of Law - Temporary Immunity As Violative Of Montesquieu's Republican Virtue As Embodied In George Washington, Joseph P. Rodgers Jan 1997

Suspending The Rule Of Law - Temporary Immunity As Violative Of Montesquieu's Republican Virtue As Embodied In George Washington, Joseph P. Rodgers

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note offers a somewhat unique perspective on the notion of clemency. This inquiry contemplates the merit of temporary immunity from civil suits for acts which eventuated outside the scope of one's official responsibilities and argues that such an unprecedented expansion of civil immunity is antithetical to Montesquieu's conception of public virtue as evinced in The Spirit of Laws. This Note also reflects on the iconic role of Washington at the Constitutional Convention as emblematic of quintessential republican virtue. Part II briefly traces the evolution of absolute, qualified, and temporary immunity from an historical perspective. Part III acclimates the reader …


The Struggle Over The Past, Robert W. Gordon Jan 1996

The Struggle Over The Past, Robert W. Gordon

Cleveland State Law Review

History supplies a set of basic ground rules; the "traditional principles of the common law," from which much modem law, both judge-made and statutory law, is seen as having improperly deviated. As the New Right ideology spreads among elite decision-makers and intellectuals, it poses a serious challenge to the Progressive-liberal consensus about the legal meanings of history that had previously dominated American legal thought for a very long time. The historical claims of New Right ideology in particular have touched off a number of fierce debates among Old (Progressive) Liberal, New Right, and radical legal intellectuals. In Section II, the …


Toward A Revisionist History Of The Supreme Court, Mark Tushnet Jan 1988

Toward A Revisionist History Of The Supreme Court, Mark Tushnet

Cleveland State Law Review

The bicentennial year provoked a reconsideration of not only the era of the framing but of constitutional history as a whole. At one point I thought that I might participate in that effort by writing a history of the Supreme Court, updating Robert McCloskey's classic book in light of recent scholarship. It turned out that that project was too daunting for me. There was too much material to assimilate before I could feel comfortable in trying to present or even develop a history of the Supreme Court. This essay is, therefore, only a sketch of a revisionist history of the …


Ideology And History, David F. Forte Jan 1979

Ideology And History, David F. Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

I do not dispute the philosophical validity of the theory of natural rights. Indeed, I support much, if not most, of the principles embodied in that theory. What I wish to discuss is that to which Dr. Vieira claims to have limited his discussion, viz., the belief that history, specifically American constitutional history, provides a sufficient base to support a natural rights theory. His attempt to find historical support is an instructive example of how ideology can distort the data of history and cause it to be portrayed in a strange and unreal light. Beyond that, Vieira's historical method also …