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Full-Text Articles in Law
Law And The Experience Of Politics In Late Eighteenth-Century North Carolina: North Carolina Considers The Constitution, Walter F. Pratt
Law And The Experience Of Politics In Late Eighteenth-Century North Carolina: North Carolina Considers The Constitution, Walter F. Pratt
Journal Articles
In 1788, delegates assembled in North Carolina to decide whether to ratify the Constitution. A debate erupted between Federalists and Anti-federalists regarding each Article of the then-drafted Constitution. This Article analyzes the debate, and proposes that the key difference was the function of the role of the law.
The Struggle For Judicial Independence In Antebellum North Carolina: The Story Of Two Judges, Walter F. Pratt
The Struggle For Judicial Independence In Antebellum North Carolina: The Story Of Two Judges, Walter F. Pratt
Journal Articles
The Supreme Court of North Carolina is an anomaly among state courts in the antebellum years. In a period dominated by democratic reforms of state government, the court did not merely survive unscathed it actually increased its independence. The remarkable success of this court is largely attributable to the personal reputations and political acumen of two of its judges, Thomas Ruffin and William Gaston. Without those two men it is likely that the Supreme Court would have been abolished in a wave of democratic reforms that peaked in North Carolina with the constitutional amendments of 1835.