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The Ever-Shrinking Case For A Constitutional Right To Same-Sex Marriage, James G. Dwyer

James G. Dwyer

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This Land Is Your Land? Survey Delegation Laws As A Compensable Taking, Doug Chapman

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

While every state in the Union has a statute delegating in some form surveying authority to private entities, the practice has been especially visible and controversial due to pipeline construction in the Commonwealth of Virginia. A major point of contention in pipeline development has centered upon the ability of private companies to use delegated eminent domain powers to survey land for possible future development. While recent decisions by both a federal Virginia District Court and the state’s Supreme Court have upheld the state’s surveying delegation law from landowner challenges, the issue is far from resolved. Virginia therefore provides an ideal …

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The Birth Of A Nation: A Study Of Slavery In Seventeenth-Century Virginia, Randolph M. Mclaughlin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Race based slavery in North America had its origins in seventeenth-century Virginia. Initially, the position of the African worker was similar to that of the indentured servants from England. During the early to mid-seventeenth century, both African and English indentured servants served for a period of years and received the protections to which a servant was entitled. However, during the 1640s there appeared examples of Africans also being held as slaves. Thus, during the seventeenth century there existed a dual system of servitude or bondage for the African worker. One basis for this duality was the common law practice that …