Legal History Commons^™

A Fourteenth Century Solution To A Twenty-First Century Problem: Using Qui Tam Legislation To Limit Executive War Power, Nicholas R. Lewis

Georgia Law Review

The United States was founded on the principle that Congress alone has the power to take the nation to war. This founding principle has failed. In its place now stands the modern principle that the Executive holds the power to initiate, wage, and conclude warfare. This modern principle, which is irreconcilable with the intent of America’s Founders, is a problem that must be remedied. And while this problem may be most pronounced in the twenty-first century, a possible solution comes from the most unlikely of places: fourteenth century England. In the 1300s, England developed qui tam legislation, a novel legal …

Constitutional Text, Founding-Era History, And The Independent-State-Legislature Theory, Dan T. Coenen

Scholarly Works

One question raised by proponents of the so-called independent-state-legislature theory concerns the extent to which state courts can apply state constitutional requirements to invalidate state laws that concern federal elections. According to one proposed application of the theory, state courts can never subject such laws to state-constitution-based judicial review. According to another application, federal courts can broadly, though not invariably, foreclose state courts from drawing on state constitutions to invalidate federal-election-related state legislation. This article evaluates whether either of these positions comports with the original meaning of the Constitution. Given the article’s focus on the originalist methodology, it directs attention …

The University Of Georgia School Of Law And Early Legal Education, Paul Deforest Hicks

Other Law School Publications

The history of the University of Georgia School of Law examines how developments in American legal education and local attitudes and traditions influenced its formative years. Founded in 1859 as the Lumpkin Law School, it was among the newest of 21 university law schools (those that awarded law degrees) on the eve of the Civil War.

To head the revived law school, the UGA board of trustees chose William L. Mitchell. As chairman of the board’s Prudential Committee, he was a principal architect of the 1859 reorganization of the university that included creation of the law school.

Almost all southern …

American Religious Liberty Without (Much) Theory: A Review Of Religion And The American Constitutional Experiment, 5th Edition, Nathan S. Chapman

Scholarly Works

Book review of Religion and the American Constitutional Experiment, 5th ed. By John Witte Jr., Joel A. Nichols, and Richard W. Garnett. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. Pp. 464. $150.00 (cloth); $39.95 (paper); $26.99 (digital). ISBN: 9780197587614.