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Can Judicial Independence Be Attained In The South? Overcoming History, Elections, And Misperceptions About The Role Of The Judiciary, Stephen B. Bright

Georgia State University Law Review

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Spiritual Equality, The Black Codes, And The Americanization Of The Freedmen, David F. Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The notion of spiritual equality grew from the abolitionist movement - the precursor for the political ideology of the radical Republicans. The radical Republicans did not think one could achieve the acceptance of spiritual equality through forced material equality. [I]t was a religious revival that brought our country to confront the reality of slavery. It was a theological doctrine from which we derived our notion of equality in the Reconstruction Amendments. And in that era, the free-thinkers - the secularists of the age - were temporizers on the issue. They were simply of no use in the raising to liberty …

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Book Review: Lessons From Reconstruction For Libertarians: Betrayal And Illusion In The Struggle For Real Equality No Easy Walk To Freedom: Reconstruction And The Ratification Of The Fourteenth Amendment By James E. Bond, Henry W. Mcgee, Jr.

Seattle University Law Review

With regard to the struggles of the newly freed slaves, Dean Bond's study of the Reconstruction legislatures endorses the views of contemporary historians. These historians do not blame the freedman for failure to forge lasting instruments of liberation, instruments that might have transformed the formal equality promised by emancipation into a social order free of the stigmatizing racial oppression upon which American slavery, segregation, and racial oppression has been premised. Diligently researched and written, the book is of significant interest because of the coincidence of the author's empathy with Afro-Americans and his unwavering and unequivocal affirmation of racial equality, principles …