Law Commons^™

United/States: A Revolutionary History Of American Statehood, Craig Green

Michigan Law Review

Where did states come from? Almost everyone thinks that states descended immediately, originally, and directly from British colonies, while only afterward joining together as the United States. As a matter of legal history, that is incorrect. States and the United States were created by revolutionary independence, and they developed simultaneously in that context as improvised entities that were profoundly interdependent and mutually constitutive, rather than separate or sequential.

“States-first” histories have provided foundational support for past and present arguments favoring states’ rights and state sovereignty. This Article gathers preconstitutional evidence about state constitutions, American independence, and territorial boundaries to challenge …

Assessing The State Of The State Constitutionalism, Jim Rossi

Michigan Law Review

Robert Williams's The Law of American State Constitutions is an impressive career accomplishment for one of the leading academic lawyers writing on state constitutions. Given the need for a comprehensive, treatise-like treatment of state constitutions that transcends individual jurisdictions, Williams's book will almost certainly become the go-to treatise for the next generation of state constitutional law practitioners and scholars. The U.S. Constitution has a grip on how the American legal mind approaches issues in American constitutionalism, but an important recurring theme in Williams's work (as well as that of others) is how state constitutions present unique interpretive challenges. More than …

Criminal Justice In The Lower Courts: A Study In Continuity, Gerald Caplan

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Transformation of Criminal Justice: Philadelphia, 1800-1880 by Allen Steinberg

Law And Disputing In Commercializing Early America, Cornelia Dayton

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Neighbors and Strangers: Law and Community in Early Connecticut by Bruce H. Mann

Ambivalent Legacy: A Legal History Of The South, Lynda J. Oswald

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Ambivalent Legacy: A Legal History of the South edited by David J. Bodenhamer and James W. Ely, Jr.

The Birth Of A Public Corporation, Jon C. Teaford

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Public Property and Private Power: The Corporation of the City of New York in American Law, 1730-1870. by Hendrik Hartog

Law In Colonial America: The Reassessment Of Early American Legal History, Warren M. Billings

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts: Essex County, 1629-1692 by David Thomas Konig, and Dispute and Conflict Resolution in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, 1725-1825 by William E. Nelson, and Faithful Magistrates and Republican Lawyers: Creators of Virginia Legal Culture, 1680-1810 by A.G. Roeber

The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology And The Making Of The State Constitutions In The Revolutionary Era, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The First American Constitutions: Republican Ideology and the Making of the State Constitutions in the Revolutionary Era by Willi Paul Adams

The Court, The Legislature, And Governmental Tort Liability In Michigan, Luke K. Cooperrider

Michigan Law Review

In 1961, when Justice Edwards of the Michigan supreme court said, "From this date forward the judicial doctrine of governmental immunity from ordinary torts no longer exists in Michigan," he went on to say that he was eliminating from the law of Michigan "an ancient rule inherited from the days of absolute monarchy," a "whim of long-dead kings." Justice Carr, dissenting, agreed that the doctrine in question "came to us as a part of the common law," for which reason he thought it was protected by the reception clause of the Constitution of 1850 from the overruling action of the …

History Of Michigan Constitutional Provision Prohibiting A General Revision Of The Laws, W L. Jenks

Michigan Law Review

Alone among the states of the Union, Michigan has, since i85o, pr6hibited any general revision of the laws and permits only a compilation of laws in force without alteration. As practically all the neighboring states, as well as New York, from which much of the early legislatiorf of Michigan was derived, have continued to revise their statutes from time to time, it may be interesting to see why Michigan alone has thought it desirable not only to stop the practice which it followed until I85o, but to prevent effectually its legislature from ever attempting it in the future.

Judicial System Of Michigan Under Governor And Judges, W L. Jenks

Michigan Law Review

When the Territory of Michigan came into existence July i, 1805, it found a system of jurisprudence in operation which had been adopted by the Governor and Judges of the Northwest Territory from the laws of Pennsylvania, due no doubt, to the fact that Gov. Arthur St. Clair had lived some years in that State, had been a member of its Board of Censors, a magistrate, and was familiar with its judicial system which provided a-Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace in each county composed of Justices of the Peace, a Court of Common Pleas in each County, …

Extension Of Judicial Review In New York, Edward S. Corwin

Michigan Law Review

There are several reasons why it should be worth while to investigate the operation of the most unique of American governmental institutions in the most important state of the Union. For one thing, in the person of Chancellor KZN" New York furnished one of the founders of American Constitutional Law, while at the same time it was KzNT's fame that early gave New York decisions the importance they still retain in great part in the field of citation and precedent. Again it was YNT'S influence that inclined the fresh shoot of constitutional jurisprudence in New York in a conservative direction, …