Law Commons^™

Reflections On From Slaves To Citizens Bondage, Freedom And The Constitution: The New Slavery Scholarship And Its Impact On Law And Legal Historiography, Robert J. Kaczorowski

Faculty Scholarship

The thesis of Professor Donald Nieman's paper, "From Slaves to Citizens: African-Americans, Rights Consciousness, and Reconstruction," is that the nation experienced a revolution in the United States Constitution and in the consciousness of African Americans. According to Professor Nieman, the Reconstruction Amendments represented "a dramatic departure from antebellum constitutional principles,"' because the Thirteenth Amendment reversed the pre-Civil War constitutional guarantee of slavery and "abolish[ed] slavery by federal authority." The Fourteenth Amendment rejected the Supreme Court's "racially-based definition of citizenship [in Dred Scott v. Sandford4], clearly establishing a color-blind citizenship” and the Fifteenth Amendment "wrote the principle of equality into the …

With Malice Toward Some: United States V. Kirby, Malicious Prosecution, And The Fourteenth Amendment, David J. Achtenberg

Faculty Works

In 1869, the Supreme Court treated United States v. Kirby as a simple case. In 1994, it treated Albright v. Oliver as a case divorced from history. Understanding the factual complexity of Kirby provides the historical framework missing from Albright and casts new light on the issue of whether the Fourteenth Amendment forbids malicious prosecution.

United States v. Kirby appeared straightforward. John W. Kirby was indicted for interferring with the United States mail by detaining a mail agent, Dr. Cyrus W. Farris, and a mail steamer. John Kirby's defense was simple. He was the sheriff of Gallatin County, Kentucky. The …