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Legal History Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Slaves As Plaintiffs, Alfred L. Brophy Apr 2017

Slaves As Plaintiffs, Alfred L. Brophy

Michigan Law Review

Review of Redemption Songs: Suing for Freedom Before Dred Scott by Lea VanderVelde.


Race And Constitutional Law Casebooks: Recognizing The Proslavery Constitution, Juan F. Perea Apr 2012

Race And Constitutional Law Casebooks: Recognizing The Proslavery Constitution, Juan F. Perea

Michigan Law Review

Federalist No. 54 shows that part of Madison's public defense of the Constitution included the defense of some of its proslavery provisions. Madison and his reading public were well aware that aspects of the Constitution protected slavery. These aspects of the Constitution were publicly debated in the press and in state ratification conventions. Just as the Constitution's protections for slavery were debated at the time of its framing and ratification, the relationship between slavery and the Constitution remains a subject of debate. Historians continue to debate the centrality of slavery to the Constitution. The majority position among historians today appears …


"Airbrushed Out Of The Constitutional Canon": The Evolving Understanding Of Giles V. Harris, 1903-1925, Samuel Brenner Mar 2009

"Airbrushed Out Of The Constitutional Canon": The Evolving Understanding Of Giles V. Harris, 1903-1925, Samuel Brenner

Michigan Law Review

Richard H. Pildes argued in an influential 2000 article that the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in Giles v. Harris, which was written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, was the "one decisive turning point" in the history of "American (anti)-democracy." In Giles, Holmes rejected on questionable grounds Jackson W. Giles's challenge to the new Alabama Constitution of 1901-a document which was designed to disfranchise and had the effect of disfranchising African Americans. The decision thus contributed significantly to the development of the all-white electorate in the South, and the concomitant marginalization of southern African Americans. According to Pildes, however, the …


History's Stories, Stephan Landsman May 1995

History's Stories, Stephan Landsman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Stories of Scottsboro by James Goodman


To Set The Law In Motion: The Freedmen's Bureau And The Legal Rights Of Blacks, 1865-1868, Michigan Law Review Mar 1981

To Set The Law In Motion: The Freedmen's Bureau And The Legal Rights Of Blacks, 1865-1868, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of To Set the Law in Motion: The Freedmen's Bureau and the Legal Rights of Blacks, 1865-1868 by Donald G. Nieman