Law Commons^™

Talking About Difference: Meanings And Metaphors Of Individuality, Gregory S. Alexander

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the relationship between communitarianism and difference theory. Specifically, it focuses on the rhetorical practices that have created an apparent conflict between difference theory and communitarianism. My purpose is to suggest why this conflict dissolves when community and difference are understood as strategic rhetorics that share a common political vision.

Roman Law And English Law: Two Patterns Of Legal Development, Alan Watson

Scholarly Works

It is commonplace among scholars to link in thought the growth of Roman law and of English law. S.F.C. Milsom begins his distinguished Historical Foundations of the Common Law with the words: "It has happened twice only that the customs of European peoples were worked up into intellectual systems of law; and much of the world today is governed by laws derived from the one or the other." More strikingly, some scholars see an essential similarity in legal approaches in the two systems. Fritz Pringsheim entitled a well-known article The Inner Relationship Between English and Roman Law. W.W. Buckland and …

Chapter 5 - Matrimonial Bonds: Slavery And Divorce In Nineteenth-Century America (Previously Published Article), Elizabeth B. Clark

Manuscript of Women, Church, and State: Religion and the Culture of Individual Rights in Nineteenth-Century America

In the covenant of marriage, woman is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master -- the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement. He has so framed the law of divorce . . . as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women -- the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

Matrimonial Bonds: Slavery And Divorce In Nineteenth-Century America, Elizabeth B. Clark

Publications

In the covenant of marriage, woman is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master -- the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement. He has so framed the law of divorce . . . as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women -- the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

Virginia Manuscript Law Reports, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

Case law, including published cases and cases that have never been published, is the basis of the common law. Professor Bryson discusses the use of manuscript law reports in Virginia during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

"Our Real Need": Not Explanation, But Education, Thomas D. Eisele

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Wittgenstein wrote nothing on legal theory or law, so there is no obvious textual basis on which to draw possible connections between Wittgenstein and legal theory. And Wittgenstein abhorred theorizing in philosophy. So the odds are slim that Wittgenstein would have accommodated himself or his work to similar activity in the law. Where does this leave us?

At sea, which is where we normally are in life and, thus, where Wittgenstein wants us to recognize ourselves as being when doing philosophy too. But theory can disguise this fact from us, as it also can make us think that we have …

Wittgenstein's Instructive Narratives: Leaving The Lessons Latent, Thomas D. Eisele

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Philosophical Investigations is one of the great works about instruction, as Stanley Cavell says, because it is a great work of instruction. It dot::s not simply tell us about instruction; it shows us instruction in action-by instructing us. But it does this in a disconcerting way; it instructs us indirectly or latently. And often it uses stories to do this.

Wittgenstein rarely states a thesis or a conclusion that he then wants us simply to approve or accept. Rather, he directs our attention to some fact or phenomenon and invites our response to it, sometimes by giving us his response …

Never Mind The Manner Of My Speech: The Dilemma Of Socrates' Defense In The Apology, Thomas D. Eisele

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

What might we learn from reading Plato's Apology? Socrates, the foremost teacher in Western culture, is on trial for his life, and he defends the way he has lived by describing how he has conducted himself; this means describing how he has taught and what he has taught and why he teaches as he does. The charge against Socrates is that he does not believe in the traditional deities of Athens and instead has introduced new deities (an apparent reference to his inner voice, his daimonion).This impiety on his part has led him to corrupt Athenian youths influenced by his …

Creative Writers And Criminal Justice: Confronting The System (1890–1920), Maxwell Bloomfield

Scholarly Articles

By the early twentieth century the modernization of American criminal law had become an issue of widespread public concern, both in professional circles and in the popular press. Bar leaders, such as Roscoe Pound and William Howard Taft, proposed to improve the machinery of criminal justice by tightening procedural rules and enhancing the authority of trial judges. Their efforts at “scientific” law reform led to the creation of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology in 1909.

Creative writers, on the other hand, influenced by the rise of literary realism, tended to produce popular novels and plays that sympathized …

The Marshall Court And The Writing Of Law And History (Review Of G. Edward White, The Marshall Court And Cultural Change, 1815-35, Vols. 3 And 4. The Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History Of The Supreme Court Of The United States), Alfred S. Konefsky

Book Reviews

No abstract provided.

How To Govern A City On A Hill: The Early Puritan Contribution To American Constitutionalism, John Witte Jr.

Faculty Articles

This Article explores briefly the constitutional ideas and institutions of seventeenth-century Puritan New England. It analyzes the constitutional ideas that the Puritans derived from their theological doctrines of covenant, church and state, and sin, and it examines the forms and functions of political and ecclesiastical government they devised in implementation of these ideas.

The Role Of The States In The First Century Of The Sherman Act And The Larger Picture Of Antitrust History, James May

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Maryland Context Of Dred Scott: The Decline In The Legal Status Of Maryland Free Blacks 1776-1810, David S. Bogen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Advice, Consent, And Influence, Robert F. Nagel

Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Bench And Bureaucracy: The Public Career Of Sir Julius Caesar, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

A book review of Bench and Bureaucracy: The Public Career of Sir Julius Caesar by Lamar M. Hill.

The Roman Law Of Trusts, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

A book review on The Roman Law of Trusts by David Johnston.

Falling Off The Vine: Legal Fictions And The Doctrine Of Substituted Judgment, Louise Harmon

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Culture And Certainty: Legal History And The Reconstructive Project, Joan C. Williams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Habeas Corpus And The Penalty Of Death, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Natural Law And Legal Reasoning, John M. Finnis

Journal Articles

Much academic theory about legal reasoning greatly exaggerates the extent to which reason can settle what is greater good or lesser evil, and minimizes the need for authoritative sources which, so far as they are clear and respect the few absolute moral rights and duties, are to be respected as the only rational basis for judicial reasoning and decision, in relation to the countless issues which do not directly involve those absolute rights and duties. A natural law theory in the classical tradition makes no pretense that natural reason can determine the one right answer to those countless questions which …

The Third Best Choice: An Essay On Law And History, Theodore Y. Blumoff

Articles

The thesis of this Essay is that our use of history is as essential and unavoidable as conclusive answers are irretrievable. Irretrievability exists whether the historical reality sought results from a survey of traditional historical materials in an effort to recapture original understanding, or from a common-law effort to discover the Court's own history of an issue. In either case, however, the need to attempt to recover historical truths is perceived as essential. I subscribe, for the most part, to the contextualist premise that we cannot recover sufficient historical data on issues that matter to make history determinate in the …

Historical Analysis In Antitrust Law, James May

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

John Adams's Thoughts On Government, 1776, Richard B. Bernstein

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Municipal Issues And The Charter Of Rights: The Impact At The Grass Roots, A. Wayne Mackay, Kathryn Heckaman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Municipal institutions are the forgotten partners in the Canadian confederation. This is true in both political and legal terms. In political terms the agencies of local government are often under-valued. With respect to the law, the municipal level of government has too often been ignored. Both municipal councils and their related boards and tribunals have an important impact on the lives of citizens at the grass roots level. In carrying out their duties, municipal authorities exercise a wide range of discretionary powers and it is becoming increasingly important that they recognize the legal limits on their powers. The first and …

The Transformation Of American Property Law: A Comparative Law Approach, Alan Watson

Scholarly Works

This Article looks at aspects of a particular societal problem as it was approached at different historical periods in Roman, French, and American property law. The main point of the Article is to clarify understanding of the American course of development through an awareness of how the problem was dealt with elsewhere. This awareness will cast doubt on the simplicity of the American course of development as explained in a distinguished book, and on the relationship of the legal development to economic change. In THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN LAW, 1780-1860, Morton J. Horwitz seeks "to show that one of the …

Foreword: Nonjudicial Statutory Interpretation, William D. Popkin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the past decade the study of statutory interpretation has gone from benign neglect to intense scrutiny, but the emphasis has remained on interpretation by courts. This symposium takes a different approach. The major theme is that interpretation depends on the interpreter and that we can gain insight into statutory interpretation, even by courts, from analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of nonjudicial interpreters. Part I of this Foreword places the symposium in the broader setting of recent literature on statutory interpretation, briefly reviewing the major schools of thought and explaining the contributors' perspectives. Part II sets forth my own views …

Feminism's Search For The Feminine: Essentialism, Utopianism, And Community, Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. From Medieval Group Litigation To The Modern Class Action By Stephen C. Yeazell, Richard M. Fraher

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Book Review. Conceptual Change And The Constitution, Stephen A. Conrad

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

'Were There No Appeal': The History Of Review In American Criminal Courts, David Rossman

Faculty Scholarship

The contemporary criminal justice system is guided, in large part, from the top down. A great deal of the force that drives the "terrible engine" of the criminal law is supplied by courts that consider cases on review after a defendant has been convicted.