Law Commons^™

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 …

'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 …

James Madison’S Federalist No. 10 Considered In A Very Large State, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter Onuf’s essay in All Over the Map: The Origins of American Sectionalism measures the cost of diversity in constituencies: eventually geography tears a nation apart or supplies the preconditions for its destruction. James Madison’s Federalist No. 10 argues that large republics are possible, a thesis (obliquely) opposed to Onuf’s. Our Constitutional Logic investigates.

Table Annexed To Article: Resources Available To Constitution Drafters, Current To 1787, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

By the time that the text-writers turned to the final push to craft Constitution I they had, as resource, sixteen different proposals for a national organization representing states as constituents and twelve ratified state constitutions. By the time the federal convention opened for the business of crafting Constitution II, another five state constitutions had been adopted (with another four failed constitutions in circulation), for a grand total of seventeen constitutions on top of the previous 16 proposals, and, of course, one fully adopted and tested national form of organization, Constitution I, the Articles of Confederation.

Table Annexed To Article: A Survey Of The Federal Convention's Note-Takers, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Eleven of the fifty-five delegates that attended the Federal Convention took notes during the proceedings. These notes, along with Jackson’s official journal and available committee drafts, are assembled in Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. The best known are Major Wm. Jackson and James Madison, the convention’s official Secretary and its unofficial note-taker, respectively. The efforts of all twelve note-takers are surveyed by output.

The Significance Of As 8.08.207 And Marshall’S Mcculloch, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

To become a lawyer in Alaska study at an accredited law school is rendered (potentially) avoidable if a student can study the branches of the law as prescribed by the course of study adopted by the University of Alaska, by which paraphrase Our Constitutional Logic cites the reader to AS 8.08.207(c).

Table Annexed To Article: Slave_Owner Attendance In Twenty-Five Votes On Article Ii, Section 1 Based On Updated Attendance Table, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic tables the attendance of Slave_Owner delegates in the twenty-five votes on Article II, Section 1 at the Philadelphia convention on August 24 and September 5 and 6, 1787; the information is drawn from Detailed Attendance Table Updating the Table Appearing in Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention, May 25, 1787-September 17, 1787, 2 OCL 100, in which OCL updated the attendance data which was last surveyed in Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Vol. 3: 586-590.

Table Annexed To Article: Farrand's Volume Three Consisting Of Reports On The Federal Convention (1911, Rev. 1937) In Mr Text Format, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic presents machine searchable text of volume 3 of Max Farrand’s 1937 (revised edition) of his Records of the Federal Convention. This is the most important experiment in assembling meta-text in the Twentieth Century. OCL’s MR format enables machine searching. The word count returns 226,481. The Federalist essays count 189,728 words.

The Significance Of As 8.08.207 And Marshall's Mcculloch, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Madison’s Federalist No. 10 theorized that size wasn’t an issue when it came to constructing a large republic. Our Constitutional Logic investigates events as they devolved upon the admission of Alaska to the Union on January 3, 1959.

As 24.25.065, A Statute Devolved From Aristotle's Rhetoric, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

The legislative council shall annually examine, AS 24.20.065(a) provides in paraphrase, published opinions of state courts that rely on state statutes if the opinions indicate unclear or ambiguous statutes. Our Constitutional Logic examines the collaboration theory of lawmakers, on the codelaw and caselaw side of the ledger.

As 24.25.065, A Statute Devolved From Aristotle's Rhetoric, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

The legislative council shall annually examine, AS 24.20.065(a) provides in paraphrase, published opinions of state courts that rely on state statutes if the opinions indicate unclear or ambiguous statutes. Our Constitutional Logic examines the collaboration theory of lawmakers, on the codelaw and caselaw side of the ledger.

Table Annexed To Article: Sources Supplied In Support Of "Managing Military Talent And Tactics In Defense Of A National Capital: Madison's 'Lessons Learned' From Napoleon's Capture Of Moscow", Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic, in line with its usual practice of enabling access to resources, has posted (in MR text format) the eight most important texts which support or shed light on the points made in the main article, titled above, which will be posted separately. A preliminary version will be read to a panel of the Society for the Historians of the Early American Republic at its Philadelphia conference in July, 2014. The table directs the reader to the URLs for each of the eight texts, including unpublished letters of Adm. Alexander Cochrane. The table includes other materials such as …

Table Annexed To Article: Luther Martin's Genuine Information In Mr Text Format (1787), Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

In his address to the Maryland House of Delegates in November 1787, supplemented by public correspondence Martin attacked the proposed federal government, thereafter continuing his fight into the Maryland ratification convention. His Genuine Information, Delivered To The Legislature Of The State Of Maryland, Relative To The Proceedings Of The General Convention, Held At Philadelphia, In 1787, By Luther Martin, Esq., Attorney-General Of Maryland, And One Of The Delegates In The Said Convention, consists of 28,899 words. Our Constitutional Logic publishes a machine readable / machine searchable text which includes the (often omitted) preamble.

Table Annexed To Article: Surveying ‘Enumeration’ And ‘Limited’ In Farrand’S Records Volume Three And The Federalist Essays, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic surveyed word counts for ‘enumeration’ and ‘limited’ in the Records of the Federal Convention, volume 3, edited by Max Farrand and in the 85 essays of The Federalist. Results are tabled.

Ghosts Of The Disciplinary Machine: Lee Harvey Oswald, Life-History, And The Truth Of Crime, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

Thirty-four years ago, the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, popularly known as the Warren Commission, published its famous report. The Commission's most famous conclusion, that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, shot and killed President John F. Kennedy, has been the subject of ceaseless public debate. Such attention, of course, is understandable. The theory of a "lone gunman" seems too mundane an explanation for the closest crime a republic can have to regicide. The overwhelming popular interest in the Commission's judgment, however, has had the unfortunate consequence of deflecting analysis away from the Commission itself as a political …

Beyond Legal Realism?: Cultural Analysis, Cultural Studies, And The Situation Of Legal Scholarship, Austin Sarat, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

Everywhere it seems that culture is in ascendance. More and more social groups are claiming to have distinctive cultures and are demanding recognition of their cultural distinctiveness. Identity politics has merged with cultural politics, so that to have an identity one must now also have a culture. Those who fail to establish their culture risk having their "truth" missed by the myriad of authorities--courts, admissions committees, draft boards-whose judgments help determine life fates. As a result, it sometimes seems as if almost every ethnic, religious, or social group seeks to have its "culture" recognized, and for precisely this reason "the …

Table Annexed To Article: 'Compromise' Surveyed In Farrand's Records Volumes One And Two And In The Federalist Essays, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic surveys all uses of the word ‘compromise’ in Farrand’s Records of the Federal Convention, Volumes One and Two, and in The Federalist Essays. Table 190_1A lists all uses (34) in Farrand’s Records, while Table 190_1B lists those (9) in The Federalist. The speaker or writer is tabled, along with the date. A concordance-style swipe of the words that supply the semantic context appears.

Table Annexed To Article: Hamilton And Madison Deploy ‘Constitution’ In Four Intervals From 1787 Through 1836: Semantic Values Surveyed Through Quotations, 2 Ocl 610, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

The semantic values of ‘constitution’ and ‘constitutional’ are spread through a five way-grid beginning with The Federalist essays of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. In the second tranche, their writings and speeches – now as opponents – in the bank bill debate (1791) are examined and contrasted with their debate over Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation (1793); in the third tranche, Hamilton’s public letters (from his retirement as Secretary of the Treasury to his death in 1804) are surveyed; the fourth consists of Madison’s works included in Farrand’s volume 3 (Records of the Federal Convention).

Table Annexed To Article: R Output In Support Of Describing Delegate Behavior At Philadelphia: Predicting Recorded Voting Outcomes From Caucus Cohesion And Textual …, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Using the open-source program R, Our Constitutional Logic has computed the regression statistics based upon the data set forth in Table DD in the essay Describing Delegate Behavior at Philadelphia: Predicting Recorded Voting Outcomes from Caucus Cohesion and Textual Preferences [the table is read into R as ‘history’] for the two explanatory variables – history$Vote_t_1 (which is squared) and the factor history$fStrongWeak – to predict the outcomes of the variable Probability. In a second table the non_Slave_Owning delegates’ voting behavior is likewise computed. The test statistics returned include the p-value in the critical region for the Slave_Owners at p-value: 0.002097 …

Blaming Culture For Bad Behavior, Leti Volpp

Leti Volpp

When do we call behavior "cultural"? And when do we not? Why do we distinguish behavior in this way? And what are the consequences of this difference in recognition and naming? This Essay examines narratives that emerge in cases of forced and voluntary adolescent marriage. These narratives suggest that behavior that we might find troubling is more often causally attributed to a group-defined culture when the actor is perceived to "have" culture. Because we tend to perceive white Americans as "people without culture," when white people engage in certain practices we do not associate their behavior with a racialized conception …

Empathy And Judgment, Thomas Morawetz

Thomas H. Morawetz

Martha C. Nussbaum, Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Pp. xvii, 137. $20. Reclaiming the place of philosophy as a metadiscipline, philosophers have once more assumed the role of mediating boundary disputes among other disciplines. As the boundaries and shapes of various disciplines have grown vague and controversial, that role has become particularly significant and particularly quixotic as well. Those who play this role have many audiences. Some speak primarily to, and about, scholars. Others concern themselves with pedagogy. Still others think about the impact of the disciplines on public officials and public affairs. …

Becoming Belafonte: Black Artist, Public Radical, Judith Smith

Judith E. Smith

A son of poor Jamaican immigrants who grew up in Depression-era Harlem, Harry Belafonte became the first black performer to gain artistic control over the representation of African Americans in commercial television and film. Forging connections with an astonishing array of consequential players on the American scene in the decades following World War II—from Paul Robeson to Ed Sullivan, John Kennedy to Stokely Carmichael—Belafonte established his place in American culture as a hugely popular singer, matinee idol, internationalist, and champion of civil rights, black pride, and black power.

In Becoming Belafonte, Judith E. Smith presents the first full-length interpretive …

Unique Words In Constitutions I And Ii Surveyed, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Constitution I and Constitution II are surveyed with all words treated as appearing only once; that is, appearing uniquely. The texture of the two constitutions is presented with comparative lists of the 775 unique words of Constitution I with the 831 unique words of Constitution II; the 406 unique words of Constitution II which appear in Constitution I are calendared.

Table Annexed To Article: Comparing American Constitutions I And Ii: Topics Treated In Constitution I With Similar Topics Followed Into Constitution Ii, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

OCL explores, topic by topic, the treatment by text-writers in Constitution II of similar text crafted in Constitution I. Results are surveyed, topic by topic.

Comparing American Constitutions I And Ii: Topics Treated In Constitution Ii Compared To Similar Topics In Constitution I, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

OCL explores, topic by topic, the origins of Constitution II, in its appearance as the Early Constitution. Its 5,224 words are surely in debt to the 3,453 words of Constitution I. But by how much? The results are surveyed in the table annexed hereto.

Our Constitutional Kinesis: Words That Can Go Like A Machine, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Constitution II, the Philadelphia constitution (1787), inspired many ‘machine/ry’ references. OCL catalogs, with the help of acknowledged secondary sources, a working list of metaphors which were deployed to credit and discredit our second constitution.

Table Annexed To Article: Initial Federal Offices Created / Contemplated By The Philadelphia Constitution, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Compared to the Articles of Confederation the Philadelphia Constitution, consisting of 4,321 words, was relatively dense, if only taken in its count of titles and offices. The 107 offices created or contemplated by the Philadelphia Constitution are surveyed and the significance of the number of intersections is addressed.

Table Annexed To Article: The Early Constitution In Mr Text Format, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic supplies text of important constitutional documents in MR (machine readable aka machine searchable) text format; these presentations follow strict guidelines as to punctuation and orthography. The 5,224 words of the Early Constitution are tabled. See also A Compendium of American Constitutions: Counting Constitutions and Constitutional Text in the Early American Republic, 2 OCL 378.

Table Annexed To Article: The Philadelphia Constitution In Mr Text Format, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic supplies text of important constitutional documents in MR (machine readable aka machine searchable) text format; these presentations follow strict guidelines as to punctuation and orthography. The 4,321 words of the Philadelphia Constitution are tabled, with the ‘In Witness Whereof’ excluded, but the Preamble included. See also A Compendium of American Constitutions: Counting Constitutions and Constitutional Text in the Early American Republic, 2 OCL 378.

Table Annexed To Article: The Articles Of Confederation In Mr Text Format, Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Peter J. Aschenbrenner

Our Constitutional Logic supplies text of important constitutional documents in MR (machine readable aka machine searchable) text format and CTU (Constitutional Text Unit) format; these presentations follow strict guidelines. The 3,453 words of the Articles of Confederation are tabled, with the ‘In Witness Whereof’ excluded, but the Preamble included. MR Text is presented here