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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

A Railway, A City, And The Public Regulation Of Private Property: Cpr V. City Of Vancouver, Douglas C. Harris Oct 2019

A Railway, A City, And The Public Regulation Of Private Property: Cpr V. City Of Vancouver, Douglas C. Harris

Douglas C Harris

The doctrine of regulatory or constructive taking establishes limits on the public regulation of private property in much of the common law world. When public regulation becomes unduly onerous — so as, in effect, to take a property interest from a private owner — the public will be required to compensate the owner for its loss. In 2000, the City of Vancouver passed a by-law that limited the use of a century-old rail line to a public thoroughfare. The Canadian Pacific Railway, which owned the line, claimed the regulation amounted to a taking of its property for which the city …


Book Review Of Faiths Of The Founding Fathers, Davison M. Douglas Sep 2019

Book Review Of Faiths Of The Founding Fathers, Davison M. Douglas

Davison M. Douglas

No abstract provided.


Separation Of Church And State: Jefferson, Lincoln, And The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Show It Was Never Intended To Separate Religion From Politics, Samuel W. Calhoun Jan 2019

Separation Of Church And State: Jefferson, Lincoln, And The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Show It Was Never Intended To Separate Religion From Politics, Samuel W. Calhoun

Samuel W. Calhoun

This Essay argues that it’s perfectly fine for religious citizens to openly bring their faith-based values to public policy disputes. Part II demonstrates that the Founders, exemplified by Thomas Jefferson, never intended to separate religion from politics. Part III, focusing upon Abraham Lincoln’s opposition to slavery, shows that religion and politics have been continuously intermixed ever since the Founding. Part IV, emphasizing the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., argues that no other reasons justify barring faith-based arguments from the public square.


Building A Regime Of Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1840-1945, Felice Batlan Aug 2018

Building A Regime Of Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1840-1945, Felice Batlan

Felice J Batlan

H-Pad is happy to announce the release of its sixth broadside. In “Building a Regime of Restrictive Immigration Laws, 1840-1945,” Felice Batlan traces a century of U.S. government laws, policies, and attitudes regarding immigration. The broadside explores how ideas about race, class, religion, and the Other repeatedly led to laws restricting the immigration of those who members of Congress, the President, and the U.S. public considered inferior and/or a threat.


Eckart Otto, Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie Und Rechtsreform In Juda Und Assyrien, Steven W. Holloway Jun 2018

Eckart Otto, Das Deuteronomium: Politische Theologie Und Rechtsreform In Juda Und Assyrien, Steven W. Holloway

Steven W Holloway

No abstract provided.


The Riccobono Seminar Of Roman Law In America: The Lost Years, Timothy G. Kearley May 2018

The Riccobono Seminar Of Roman Law In America: The Lost Years, Timothy G. Kearley

Timothy G. Kearley

The Riccobono Seminar was the preeminent source of intellectual support for Romanists in the U.S. during the middle of the twentieth century. In the course of the Seminar's existence, many of the era's greatest Roman law scholars gave presentations at the Riccobono Seminar. The Seminar's history after it came under the aegis of the Catholic University of America in 1935 has been readily available, but not so for the earliest years of 1930-35, when it moved among several law schools in the District of Columbia. This paper uses archival information and newspaper articles to describe the Seminar's activities in these …


The Architecture Of Law: Building Law In The Classical Tradition, Brian M. Mccall May 2018

The Architecture Of Law: Building Law In The Classical Tradition, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

The Architecture of Law explores the metaphor of law as an architectural building project, with eternal law as the foundation, natural law as the frame, divine law as the guidance provided by the architect, and human law as the provider of the defining details and ornamentation. Classical jurisprudence is presented as a synthesis of the work of the greatest minds of antiquity and the medieval period, including Cicero, Artistotle, Gratian, Augustine, and Aquinas; the significant texts of each receive detailed exposition in these pages.
Along with McCall’s development of the architectural image, he raises a question that becomes a running …


Indefinite Detention, Colonialism, And Settler Prerogative In The United States, Natsu Taylor Saito May 2018

Indefinite Detention, Colonialism, And Settler Prerogative In The United States, Natsu Taylor Saito

Natsu Taylor Saito

The primacy accorded individual civil and political rights is often touted as one of the United States' greatest achievements. However, mass incarcerations of indefinite duration have occurred consistently throughout U.S. history and have primarily targeted people of color. The dominant narrative insists that the United States is a political democracy and portrays each instance of indefinite detention in exceptionalist terms. This essay argues that the historical patterns of indefinite detention are better explained by recognizing the United States as a settler colonial state whose claimed prerogative to expand its territorial reach and contain/control populations over which it exercises jurisdiction inevitably …


The Josiah Philips Attainder And The Institutional Structure Of The American Revolution, Matthew Steilen Nov 2017

The Josiah Philips Attainder And The Institutional Structure Of The American Revolution, Matthew Steilen

Matthew Steilen

This Article is a historical study of the Case of Josiah Philips. Philips led a gang of militant loyalists and escaped slaves in the Great Dismal Swamp of southeastern Virginia during the American Revolution. He was attainted of treason in 1778 by an act of the Virginia General Assembly, tried for robbery before a jury, convicted and executed. For many years, the Philips case was thought to be an early example of judicial review, based on a claim by St. George Tucker that judges had refused to enforce the act of attainder. Modern research has cast serious doubt on Tucker’s …


Finding The Sovereign In Sovereign Immunity: Lessons From Bodin, Hobbes, And Rousseau, David Schraub Dec 2016

Finding The Sovereign In Sovereign Immunity: Lessons From Bodin, Hobbes, And Rousseau, David Schraub

David Schraub

The doctrine of “sovereign immunity” holds that the U.S. government cannot be sued without its consent. This is not found in the Constitution’s text; it is justified on philosophical grounds as inherent to being a sovereign state: a sovereign must be able to issue commands free from constraint. The sources of this understanding of sovereignty—Hobbes, Bodin, and others—are, in turn, condemned by opponents of sovereign immunity as absolutists whose doctrines are incompatible with limited, constitutional government. This debate, and thus the usual conception of sovereign immunity, rests on a fundamental mistake. Hobbes and his peers were careful to avoid the …


From Rome To The Restatement: S.P. Scott, Fred Blume, Clyde Pharr, And Roman Law In Early Twentieth Century America, Timothy G. Kearley Feb 2016

From Rome To The Restatement: S.P. Scott, Fred Blume, Clyde Pharr, And Roman Law In Early Twentieth Century America, Timothy G. Kearley

Timothy G. Kearley

This article describes how the classical past, including Roman law and a classics-based education, influenced elite legal culture in the United States and university-educated Americans into the twentieth century and helped to encourage Scott, Blume, and Pharr to labor for many years on their English translations of ancient Roman law. 


Incumbent Landscapes, Disruptive Uses: Perspectives On Marijuana-Related Land Use Control, Donald J. Kochan Dec 2015

Incumbent Landscapes, Disruptive Uses: Perspectives On Marijuana-Related Land Use Control, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

The story behind the move toward marijuana’s legality is a story of disruptive forces to the incumbent legal and physical landscape. It affects incumbent markets, incumbent places, the incumbent regulatory structure, and the legal system in general which must mediate the battles involving the push for relaxation of illegality and adaptation to accepting new marijuana-related land uses, against efforts toward entrenchment, resilience, and resistance to that disruption.

This Article is entirely agnostic on the issue of whether we should or should not decriminalize, legalize, or otherwise increase legal tolerance for marijuana or any other drugs. Nonetheless, we must grapple with …


Magna Carta Then And Now: A Symbol Of Freedom And Equal Rights For All, Eugene K B Tan, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee Nov 2015

Magna Carta Then And Now: A Symbol Of Freedom And Equal Rights For All, Eugene K B Tan, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

Magna Carta became applicable to Singapore in 1826 when a court system administering English law was established in the Straits Settlements. This remained the case through Singapore’s evolution from Crown colony to independent republic. The Great Charter only ceased to apply in 1993, when Parliament enacted the Application of English Law Act to clarify which colonial laws were still part of Singapore law. Nonetheless, Magna Carta’s legacy in Singapore continues in a number of ways. Principles such as due process of law and the supremacy of law are cornerstones of the rule of law, vital to the success, stability and …


Demonic Ambiguities: Enchantment And Disenchantment In Nat Turner’S Virginia, Christopher Tomlins Jun 2015

Demonic Ambiguities: Enchantment And Disenchantment In Nat Turner’S Virginia, Christopher Tomlins

Christopher Tomlins

No abstract provided.


Deception In Morality And Law, Larry Alexander, Emily Sherwin Feb 2015

Deception In Morality And Law, Larry Alexander, Emily Sherwin

Emily L Sherwin

No abstract provided.


Table Annexed To Article: Twenty-Nine Events In Ten Projects (Or Discrete Event States) 1781-1846, Peter J. Aschenbrenner Jan 2015

Table Annexed To Article: Twenty-Nine Events In Ten Projects (Or Discrete Event States) 1781-1846, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

From 1781 through 1846 American public officials wrestled with the problem of creating and managing a national banking institution that would serve the needs of the federal government. The twenty-nine relevant official events (legislation, presidential approvals/vetoes, court cases) are divided into ten separate Discrete Event States, as the national government attempted to charter or recharter these institutions, along with the relevant sources and dates.


Administrative Equal Protection: Federalism, The Fourteenth Amendment, And The Rights Of The Poor, Karen M. Tani Dec 2014

Administrative Equal Protection: Federalism, The Fourteenth Amendment, And The Rights Of The Poor, Karen M. Tani

Karen M. Tani


This Article intervenes in a burgeoning literature on “administrative constitutionalism,” the phenomenon of federal agencies—rather than courts—assuming significant responsibility for elaborating the meaning of the U.S. Constitution.  Drawing on original historical research, I document and analyze what I call “administrative equal protection”: interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in a key federal agency at a time when the Clause’s meaning was fiercely contested.  These interpretations are particularly important because of their interplay with cooperative federalism—specifically, with states’ ability to exercise their traditional police power after accepting federal money.
The Article’s argument is based on a story of change …


Settlers And Immigrants In The Formation Of American Law, Aziz Rana Dec 2014

Settlers And Immigrants In The Formation Of American Law, Aziz Rana

Aziz Rana

This paper argues that the early American republic is best understood as a constitutional experiment in “settler empire,” and that related migration policies played a central role in shaping collective identity and structures of authority. Initial colonists, along with their 19th century descendants, viewed society as grounded in an ideal of freedom that emphasized continuous popular mobilization and direct economic and political decision-making. However, many settlers believed that this ideal required Indian dispossession and the coercive use of dependent groups, most prominently slaves, in order to ensure that they themselves had access to property and did not have to engage …


Heuristics, Biases, And Philosophy, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski Dec 2014

Heuristics, Biases, And Philosophy, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Jeffrey J. Rachlinski

Commenting on Professor Cass Sunstein's work is a daunting task. There is simply so much of it. Professor Sunstein produces scholarship at a rate that is faster than I can consume it. Scarcely an area of law has failed to feel his impact. One cannot today write an article on administrative law, free speech, punitive damages, Internet law, law and economics, separation of powers, or animal rights law without addressing one or more of Sunstein's papers. And his work is typically not a mere footnote. Sunstein has changed how scholars think about each of these areas of law. More broadly, …


'In The Time Of A Woman, Which Sex Was Not Capable Of Mature Deliberation': Late Tudor Parliamentary Relations And Their Early Stuart Discontents, Josh Chafetz Dec 2014

'In The Time Of A Woman, Which Sex Was Not Capable Of Mature Deliberation': Late Tudor Parliamentary Relations And Their Early Stuart Discontents, Josh Chafetz

Josh Chafetz

The English Civil War is one of the seminal events in Anglo-American constitutional history. Oceans of ink have been spilled in debating its causes, and historians have pointed to a number of salient divisions along economic, social, political, and religious lines. But a related, and equally important, question has gone largely ignored: what allowed the House of Commons, for the first time in English history, to play the lead role in opposing the Crown? How did the lower house of Parliament develop the constitutional self-confidence that would allow it to organize the rebellion against Charles I? This Article argues that …


Law & Order Made Amusing: A Selection Of Law Books For Children From The Collection Of Morris L. Cohen, Karen S. Beck, Mary Sarah Bilder, Ann Mcdonald, Sharon Hambly O'Connor Jun 2014

Law & Order Made Amusing: A Selection Of Law Books For Children From The Collection Of Morris L. Cohen, Karen S. Beck, Mary Sarah Bilder, Ann Mcdonald, Sharon Hambly O'Connor

Sharon Hamby O'Connor

Exhibition program from a Spring 1998 exhibit presented in the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room at the Boston College Law Library. The exhibit featured selections from Morris L. Cohen's collection of law books for children.


Law & Order Made Amusing: A Selection Of Law Books For Children From The Collection Of Morris L. Cohen, Karen S. Beck, Mary Sarah Bilder, Ann Mcdonald, Sharon Hambly O'Connor Jun 2014

Law & Order Made Amusing: A Selection Of Law Books For Children From The Collection Of Morris L. Cohen, Karen S. Beck, Mary Sarah Bilder, Ann Mcdonald, Sharon Hambly O'Connor

Sharon Hamby O'Connor

Exhibition program from a Spring 1998 exhibit presented in the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room at the Boston College Law Library. The exhibit featured selections from Morris L. Cohen's collection of law books for children.


Making Claims: Indian Litigants And The Expansion Of The English Legal World In The Eighteenth Century, Arthur Fraas Dec 2013

Making Claims: Indian Litigants And The Expansion Of The English Legal World In The Eighteenth Century, Arthur Fraas

Arthur Mitchell Fraas

This paper explores the British Imperial legal world of the mid-eighteenth century. Within this period, the previously confined spaces of English law and legal institutions became open to an ever widening set of legal subjects, both people as well as places. The paper focuses on what was at the time perhaps England’s most remote and murkily defined legal space, the East India Company (EIC) settlements at Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. The paper shows how a series of legal actors: metropolitan judges, Indian litigants and elite lawyers, first bridged the legal worlds of England and the subcontinent. I argue that by …


Bending The Code Civil: Married Women, Their Capacity To Engage In Contracts And The Partnership Between Spouses (C. 1804-C. 1865), Dave De Ruysscher Dec 2013

Bending The Code Civil: Married Women, Their Capacity To Engage In Contracts And The Partnership Between Spouses (C. 1804-C. 1865), Dave De Ruysscher

Dave De ruysscher

It is surprising but true that in the course of the nineteenth century a more softened interpretation of the stubborn provisions of the 1804 Civil code with regard to married women, which imposed their general incapacity to sign contracts, mostly served economic goals. Judges in nineteenth-century Belgium paid much attention to the interests of creditors, who according to the Civil code could be confronted with husbands' rejections of contracts that had been signed by their wives. It was the acknowledgement of creditors' needs that had the indirect effect of expanding the contractual capacity of wives and not a search for …


Entender Los Males Económicos Modernos A La Luz De La Doctrina Social Católica, Brian M. Mccall Dec 2013

Entender Los Males Económicos Modernos A La Luz De La Doctrina Social Católica, Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

In a general sense, St. Thomas Aquinas predicted the paralysis and chaos of the financial and economic systems in America and Europe which occurred in 2008, when he predicted that in a society where unjust exchanges dominate, eventually all exchanges will cease. St. Thomas also points out that although human law cannot prohibit all injustice, society cannot escape the consequences of transgressing the divine law which leaves “nothing unpunished.” Thus, at least part of the explanation for that crisis whose effects remain with us today lies in continuous violations of natural justice by our economic system. Neither one product nor …


Entender Los Males Economómicos Modernos A La Luz De La Doctrina Social Cátolica (Understanding Modern Economic Woes In Light Of Catholic Social Doctrine), Brian M. Mccall Dec 2013

Entender Los Males Economómicos Modernos A La Luz De La Doctrina Social Cátolica (Understanding Modern Economic Woes In Light Of Catholic Social Doctrine), Brian M. Mccall

Brian M McCall

En sentido general, Santo Tomás Aquino predijo la parálisis y el caos del sistema financiero económico en Estados Unidos y Europa que ocurrió en 2008, cuando predijo que en una sociedad donde los intercambios injustos dominan, eventualmente todos los intercambios podrán cesar. Santo Tomás también señala que aunque la ley humana no pueda prohibir todas las injusticias, la sociedad no puede escapar de las consecuencias de trasgredir la ley divina que no deja nada en la impunidad. Así, al menos una parte de la explicación para esta crisis cuyos efectos permanecen con nosotros en la actualidad se encuentra en las …


Anatomy Of Dissent In Islamic Societies, Ahmed Souaiaia Dec 2013

Anatomy Of Dissent In Islamic Societies, Ahmed Souaiaia

Ahmed E SOUAIAIA

The 'Arab Spring' that began in 2011 has placed a spotlight on the transfer of political power in Islamic societies, reviving old questions about the place of political dissent and rebellion in Islamic civilization and raising new ones about the place of religion in modern Islamic societies.

In Anatomy of Dissent in Islamic Societies, Ahmed E. Souaiaia examines the complex historical evolution of Islamic civilization in an effort to trace the roots of the paradigms and principles of Islamic political and legal theories. This study is one of the first attempts at providing a fuller picture of the place of …


Wilhelm Kroll's Preface To Justinian's Novels: An English Translation, Timothy G. Kearley, David J.D. Miller Jul 2013

Wilhelm Kroll's Preface To Justinian's Novels: An English Translation, Timothy G. Kearley, David J.D. Miller

Timothy G. Kearley

For the legal historian, the Age of Justinian is nothing short of pivotal. Medievalists and early modernists interested in the so-called reception of Roman law in later times and places must look back to Justinian and his law books, as classicists and historians interested in Roman republican or early imperial law must frequently look forward to them.

Justinian’s law books are, of course, the Digest, the Code, the Institutes, and the Novels (Novellae Constitutiones), which have become known collectively as the Corpus Iuris Civilis (CIC).

It soon becomes clear to those interested in the CIC that the standard modern version …


Wilhelm Kroll's Preface To Justinian's Novels: An English Translation, Timothy G. Kearley, David J.D. Miller Jul 2013

Wilhelm Kroll's Preface To Justinian's Novels: An English Translation, Timothy G. Kearley, David J.D. Miller

Timothy G. Kearley

Justice Frederick H. Blume, attorney and long-time Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court, single-handedly translated Justinian's Code and Novels in the early twentieth century. His is the only English translation of the Code to have been made from the Latin version accepted as most authoritative. Using Blume's papers, this article describes, among other things: how Blume created the extensive Roman law library needed for his translation; his approach to translation; and his collaboration with Clyde Pharr on Pharr's "Corpus Juris Romani" series. The article also describes the author's editing and digitization of Justice Blume's translation.


To Administer Justice On Behalf Of All The People: The United States District Court For The Eastern District Of New York 1965-1990, Jeffrey Morris Jun 2013

To Administer Justice On Behalf Of All The People: The United States District Court For The Eastern District Of New York 1965-1990, Jeffrey Morris

Jeffrey B. Morris

No abstract provided.