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Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Legal History

U.S. Race Relations And Foreign Policy, Susan D. Page Jan 2021

U.S. Race Relations And Foreign Policy, Susan D. Page

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

It is easy for Americans to think that the world’s most egregious human rights abuses happen in other countries. In reality, our history is plagued by injustices, and our present reality is still stained by racism and inequality. While the Michigan Journal of International Law usually publishes only pieces with a global focus, we felt it prudent in these critically important times not to shy away from the problems facing our own country. We must understand our own history before we can strive to form a better union, whether the union be the United States or the United Nations. Ambassador …


Obligations Impaired: Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright And The Failure Of Reconstruction In South Carolina, Caleb A. Jaffe Jan 2003

Obligations Impaired: Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright And The Failure Of Reconstruction In South Carolina, Caleb A. Jaffe

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this article, on the historiography of South Carolina Reconstruction, explains the difficulty scholars have had in uncovering the documentary history of Reconstruction, and outlines the development of historical interpretations of Reconstruction from the Nineteenth century Redeemer-era accounts to the revisionists of the 1970's. Part II provides brief biographies of both Justice Wright and William James Whipper. Parts III and IV track the different approaches of Whipper and Wright on two vital issues of their day: (1) whether to repudiate all private debts relating to slavery; and (2) how to construct a homestead law to protect cash-poor landowners. …


Blood Will Tell: Scientific Racism And The Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation, Keith E. Sealing Jan 2000

Blood Will Tell: Scientific Racism And The Legal Prohibitions Against Miscegenation, Keith E. Sealing

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This article first examines the miscegenation paradigm in terms of a seven-point conceptual framework that not merely allowed but practically demanded anti-miscegenation laws, then looks at the legal arguments state courts used to justify the constitutionality of such laws through 1967. Next, it analyzes the Biblical argument, which in its own right justified miscegenation, but also had a major influence on the development of the three major strands of scientific racism: monogenism, polygenism and Darwinian theory. It then probes the concept upon which the entire edifice is constructed-race--and discusses the continuing vitality of this construct. Next, this article turns to …


Chicana/Chicano Land Tenure In The Agrarian Domain: On The Edge Of A "Naked Knife", Guadalupe T. Lunda Jan 1998

Chicana/Chicano Land Tenure In The Agrarian Domain: On The Edge Of A "Naked Knife", Guadalupe T. Lunda

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Neither sovereignty nor property rights could forestall American geopolitical expansion in the first half of the nineteenth century. The conflicts that resulted from this clash of doctrine with desire are perhaps most evident in the history of the Chicanas/Chicanos of Texas, California, and the Southwest, who sought to maintain their land and property, as guaranteed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in the aftermath of the U.S.- Mexico War. Integrating an exploration of case law with political and social histories of the period, the Author explores the sociolegal significance of Chicana/Chicano land dispossession; exposes the racial, economic, and political motivations …