Legal History Commons^™

The Politics Of Meaning: Law Dictionaries And The Liberal Tradition Of Interpretation, Gary L. Mcdowell

Law Faculty Publications

At least since John Cowell's Interpreter was adjudged by the Committee on Grievances of the House of Commons in 1610 to be "very unadvised, and undiscreet, tending to the disreputation of the honour and power of the common laws" have law dictionaries been objects of occasional controversy. Yet legal dictionaries, as well as dictionaries more generally, have remained a constant resource in American law for those seeking to give meaning to the words of both statutes and constitutional provisions. They have appeared in the pages of the reports since the beginning of the republic; a majority of the justices of …

"High Crimes And Misdemeanors": Recovering The Intentions Of The Founders, Gary L. Mcdowell

Law Faculty Publications

Such serious charges by so many distinguished historians demand a careful consideration of what the Founders meant by "high Crimes and Misdemeanors": Were they only indictable crimes or did they include what one of the Framers called "political crimes and misdemeanors?" Were they offenses that a President would commit only in "the exercise of executive power" or did they also include a President's malfeasance committed in his private capacity? Were they subject to a reasonably fixed meaning or were they to be determined simply by the exercise of the "awful discretion" of those in Congress called upon to impeach and …

The Declaration Of Independence In Constitutional Interpretation: A Selective History And Analysis, Charles H. Cosgrove

University of Richmond Law Review

In 1845, antislavery constitutionalist Lysander Spooner argued that the Declaration of Independence was originally a legal constitution with a direct bearing on how one ought to interpret the status of slavery under the Constitution of 1787. In 1889, the congressional act establishing the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington required that their state constitutions "not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence," as if the two documents were of a piece. In 1995, attorney Christopher Darden argued to the jury in the O.J. Simpson criminal trial that slain victims Nicole …

Welfare Reform: An Historical Overview, Richard K. Caputo

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

This essay provides an historical overview of welfare reform efforts prior to enactment of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 by the 104th Congress. The author argues that the 1996 Act reaffirmed the labor market as the major arbiter of economic well-being of American citizens. In so doing, passage of the Act signified the formal end of income maintenance for able-bodied parents and released the federal government from assuming major responsibility for reducing poverty per se.

Virginia Law Reports And Records, 1776-1800, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

In 1607 Virginia was settled by a London-based corporation, and the English settlers brought with them the municipal law and legal institutions of England. It was specifically required by the instructions to the Virginia Company that litigation was to be settled "as near to the common laws of England and the equity thereof as may be". In 1632 when commissioners were appointed to hold the monthly courts (later renamed the county courts), their commissions required them to execute the office of justice of the peace and to act "as near as may be after the laws of the realm of …

"Compelled By Conscientious Duty": Village Of Euclid V. Ambler Realty Co. As Romance, Michael Allan Wolf

Law Faculty Publications

In early 1851, Nathaniel Hawthorne penned an intriguing preface to his latest work--The House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne drew a meaningful (if rarely appreciated) distinction:

When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's …

Welfare Reform: An Historical Overview, Richard K. Caputo

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

This essay provides an historical overview of welfare reform efforts prior to enactment of The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 by the 104th Congress. The author argues that the 1996 Act reaffirmed the labor market as the major arbiter of economic well-being of American citizens. In so doing, passage of the Act signified the formal end of income maintenance for able-bodied parents and released the federal government from assuming major responsibility for reducing poverty per se.

Reluctant Charity: Poor Laws In The Original Thirteen States, William P. Quigley

University of Richmond Law Review

The poor laws of the original thirteen states can best be described as reluctant public charity. Assistance was provided to some of the poor but, when provided, was strictly rationed to those local residents considered worthy of help. Visitors, strangers and nonresident poor people were not helped and were legally run out of town. Poor relief for the locals was frequently given in ways that were demeaning and destructive to families. Poor people were always expected to work, and even poor children were taken from their families by the authorities and apprenticed to others. Poor adults that could work were …

The Federalism Pendulum, Ronald J. Bacigal

Law Faculty Publications

Following Franklin's example, this essay takes a protracted view of the federalization of criminal procedure. It is important to review how the federalism pendulum has swung over the years to reflect concepts of what the Constitution was meant to mean, what it has come to mean, and what it ought to mean.

The Aall And Its Government Relations Program: Part I And Ii, Timothy L. Coggins

Law Faculty Publications

The Government Relations Policy [hereinafter Policy] of the AALL outlines the objectives of its government relations program. The Policy emphasizes that a primary goal of this Association's program is to ensure timely and equitable access to government and legal information. This Policy represents the views of an association with more than 5,000 members who provide law library services to government officials, the bench, the bar, legal scholars and the public in nearly 1,900 libraries. AALL, its members and its users are affected by a broad span of public policy concerns "ranging from the development of the National Information Infrastructure and …

The Supreme Court In United States History: A New Appreciation, Michael Allan Wolf

Law Faculty Publications

From a perspective long removed in terms of time and experience, I can still recall my first encounter with Charles Warren's Pulitzer Prize winner that still serves as the standard institutional history of the Court. My undergraduate constitutional history professor and I were engaged in a lively discussion concerning the nature of sovereignty and states' rights in the wake of the Union victory in the Civil War.He pulled from an office shelf a well-worn volume from his set of Warren's time-honored narrative. ...

The Business Of The Supreme Court Revisited, John Paul Jones

Law Faculty Publications

Nearly seventy years after its publication, Prof. Jones revisits Felix Frankfurter and James McCauley Landis' seminal 1928 book.

Participatory Government And Communal Property: Two Radical Concepts In The Virginia Charter Of 1606, Finbarr Mccarthy

University of Richmond Law Review

On April 26, 1607, about one hundred English men landed on the Atlantic shore of North America near Jamestown, Virginia. There they established the foundation for what would become the first permanent English colony in America. These men, and the men and women who followed in the next decade, left as their legacy a society that combined a rudimentary form of popular government with a system of private property. But these settlers established that society only after conducting seventeen turbulent years of social experiments. Had those experiments conducted in that Virginia swamp turned out differently, we might now live under …

Review Of Notaries Public In England Since The Reformation, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

A book review on Notaries Public in England Since the Reformation by Christopher W. Brooks, Richard H. Helmholz, and Peter G. Stein.

Persuading Thy Neighbor To Be As Thyself: Constitutional Limits On Evangelism In The United States And India, Jonathan K. Stubbs

Law Faculty Publications

Religious belief is frequently a very personal concern. Accordingly, situations in which individuals discuss beliefs with one another can result in a wide range of consequences. Such consequences may include mutual gratitude and growth as well as mutual distrust and destruction. ...

Sin, Scandal, And Substantive Due Process, Wendy Collins Perdue

Law Faculty Publications

For students of civil procedure, the names Pennoyer and Neff evoke these dry facts: In an initial suit, one J.H. Mitchell sued Neff in Oregon state court. Because Neff could not be found within Oregon, he was served by publication. Neff never appeared, and a default judgment was entered against him. To satisfy the judgment, Mitchell attached Neff's Oregon real estate. The property was sold at auction, and Pennoyer later acquired it. Nearly a decade later, Neff returned to Oregon and brought suit in federal court to evict Pennoyer from the land, claiming that the original judgment was invalid. The …

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Silvery Anniversary, History, Elizabeth B. Lacy

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

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.

The Roman Law Of Trusts, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

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

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.

Equity And Equitable Remedies, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

Encyclopedia entry on Equity and Equitable Remedies in the Encyclopedia of the American judicial system : studies of the principal institutions and process of law.

English Common Law In Virgina, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

By statute the common law of England is the basis of the common law of modern Virginia. This reception statute refers to the customary, unwritten law of the kingdom of England, but only that part which was general and common to all parts of England. That the English common law is the foundation of the law of Virginia is a matter not merely of a modern statute but also of history and reason.

The Use Of Roman Law In Virginia Courts, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

By statute, the courts of Virginia are required to decide cases according to the principles of the English common law. However, they are not forbidden to resort to any other legal system where the common law of England is silent. Moreover, when the English courts themselves have no English law on a particular point, they often look to the Roman law in its ancient or its current form for guidance. Therefore, it is not unreasonable for Virginia courts to do likewise, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in fact, they did. The purpose of this essay is to consider …

Legal Growth Through Evolution: Comment On Puritan Revolution And English Law, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

Professor Harold Berman has presented the fascinating thesis that a people's religion influences their laws and that the Puritan religious revolution of seventeenth century England introduced Calvinist ideas into Anglo-American jurisprudence. I fully agree with Professor Berman's observations that religious beliefs and a sense of moral obligation to others are some of the motivations of, or at least influences upon, legal growth. Economic aggrandizement is not the only motivation of the human race. Religion has had a direct effect upon social and political institutions.

The Abolition Of The Forms Of Action In Virginia, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The common law procedure for initiating actions at law in the English courts required a plaintiff to obtain a writ invoking the jurisdiction of the court and to file a declaration setting forth the facts that justified instigation of the suit and established the cause of the action. This clumsy and archaic system of litigation was abolished by a single chop of the legislative guillotine in New York in 1848. England followed suit in 1875, and the United States federal courts in 1938. Writs and declarations were replaced by simple forms which were copied from the practice of the equity …

The Court Of Exchequer Comes Of Age, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The Exchequer was well established as a court of law in the thirteenth century. For the next three hundred years, the Exchequer court seems to have carried out its duties without much change in function or status. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the judicial business of the Exchequer amounted to about 200 cases per year as compared with about 2500 in the court of King's Bench and 10,000 in the Common Pleas. However, during the middle period of the reign of Henry VIII, the first signs of growth since the thirteenth century appeared. This expansion of the court …

Das Profil Des Juristen In Der Europiiischen Tradition, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

A book review on, Das Profil des Juristen in der europiiischen Tradition, by Klaus Luig and Detlef Liebs, eds.,

Review On Commentaries On The Laws Of England: A Facsimile Of The First Edition Of 1765-1769, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

A book review on, Commentaries on the Laws of England: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765-1769, by W. Blackstone.

Discovery Of Penalites, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The purpose of this essay is to discuss some aspects of the scope of the privilege against self-incrimination. It will consider first what can not be and then what can be discovered by the common law of England before 1776, when the first republican constitution of Virginia was promulgated. Finally, the developments in Virginia and federal practice will be dealt with.