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Full-Text Articles in Law
Mcculloch And The Thirteenth Amendment, Jennifer Mason Mcaward
Mcculloch And The Thirteenth Amendment, Jennifer Mason Mcaward
Journal Articles
Section 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment gives Congress the “power to enforce” the ban on slavery and involuntary servitude “by appropriate legislation.” The conventional view of Section 2 regards this language as an allusion to McCulloch v. Maryland’s explication of Congress’s executory powers, and holds that Congress has substantial, and largely unreviewable, power to determine both the ends and the means of Section 2 legislation. This Essay argues that the conventional view departs from the original meaning of Section 2. It demonstrates that McCulloch preserved a role for judicial review with respect to both the ends and means of federal …
Defining The Badges And Incidents Of Slavery, Jennifer Mason Mcaward
Defining The Badges And Incidents Of Slavery, Jennifer Mason Mcaward
Journal Articles
Most agree that Section Two of the Thirteenth Amendment empowers Congress to legislate regarding the “badges and incidents of slavery.” Few, however, have explored in depth the precise meaning of this concept. The goal of this Article is to provide a historical and conceptual framework for interpreting and identifying the badges and incidents of slavery. It examines the original public meaning of the terms “badge of slavery” and “incident of slavery” as well as how the “badges and incidents” concept has been incorporated into and used in Thirteenth Amendment jurisprudence. It considers several analytical variables from historical, jurisprudential, and policy …
Did The Slaves Author The Thirteenth Amendment? An Essay In Redemptive History, Guyora Binder
Did The Slaves Author The Thirteenth Amendment? An Essay In Redemptive History, Guyora Binder
Journal Articles
American constitutional interpretation is deeply traditionalist, and privileges original intent. The difficulty with thus authorizing the past in interpreting the Thirteenth Amendment is that it purports to abolish custom and tradition as unjust. This essay argues that, given the Amendment’s denunciation of the polity that enacted it as illegitimate, its questionable formal pedigree, and the agency of the slaves in precipitating, defining, and resolving the crisis that enabled it, the slaves have a moral claim to status as its authors. It follows that the original intent guiding interpretation should be that of the slaves themselves.
On Hegel, On Slavery, But Not On My Head!, Guyora Binder
On Hegel, On Slavery, But Not On My Head!, Guyora Binder
Journal Articles
This Article, a sequel to “Mastery, Slavery and Emancipation,” amplified its claims that slaves conceptualized freedom primarily in solidaristic terms as social and political participation, and recognition rather than as individual autonomy or economic opportunity. It replied to skeptical objections offered by Critical Race Theorist Kendall Thomas and offered a solidaristic reading of the autobiographies of Fredercik Douglass and Sellah Martin.
Mastery, Slavery, And Emancipation, Guyora Binder
Mastery, Slavery, And Emancipation, Guyora Binder
Journal Articles
Hegel's dialectic of master and slave in the Phenomenology of Mind portrays a master unable to win genuine recognition from a slave because unwilling to confer it. The dialectic implies that freedom has to be conceived as association based on mutual respect, rather than independence. This article offers a communitarian interpretation of emancipation inspired by Hegel's dialectic of master and slave. It proceeds from an account of slave society which, like Hegel's dialectic, equates slavery with the denial of social recognition. This account argues that the experience of slave society led both the masters and the slaves to conceive of …