Legal History Commons^™

The Lives Of Fritz Haber And Of International Law: Entwined Tales Of Tragedy And Irony, Mark A. Drumbl, C. William Vardy

Scholarly Articles

This article recounts the life of international law through the story of a single individual. This is the narrative of biographical international law. The subject — equally protagonist and antagonist — of this article is Fritz Haber, a German-Jewish scientist born in 1868. Devoted to the Kaiser, Haber was declared a war criminal by the Allies following World War I for having been ‘the father’ of chemical warfare. Haber argued that chemical weapons were more humane than conventional weapons. While under this shadow, Haber also won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1920 for his pioneering work with ammonia …

Democracy, History, And Washington And Lee, Christopher B. Seaman

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

At Washington and Lee, it is customary for the new holder of an endowed professorship to deliver a public lecture called a chair talk to mark their installation. This is a lightly edited and footnoted version of Professor Seaman's chair talk on October 8, 2024, given as the new Robert E.R. Huntley Professor of Law.

“Freedom Lives Hence, And Banishment Is Here”: The Weaponization Of Immigration Law To Punish Political Dissidents, Ryan Scott

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note explores the long and bipartisan history of the United States government’s weaponization of the immigration system to control, exclude, and expel percieved political enemies. The near-unlimited power that the federal government has acrrued in immigration matters has been used since the Founders’ generation to purge the country of those whose ideas and speech are seen by the powers that be as threatening or subversive. This Note traces the arc of such efforts from the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 to the explusion of activists under President Trump. The Note also examines attempts to force the courts to …

Policing As General Warrants, Warren Buff, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

The drafters of the Bill of Rights and its proponents envisioned a document constitutionalizing protections against some of the worst abuses they had experienced under English rule. Prominent businessmen—many of them engaged in smuggling— found their homes ransacked in search of contraband on flimsy evidence and without any reason given for the disruption of their business and consequent enrichment of government agents. The Fourth Amendment addressed the use of general warrants and writs of assistance to allow government agents to conduct broad searches with limited scrutiny. In the early years of the Constitution, this had little practical effect, because public …

What Roosevelt Did To Brown V. Board Of Education, Or Race And Court Packing, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

Roughly one-third of American schools remain segregated. Scholars have offered a variety of explanations, mostly social and cultural, but sometimes legal, for why desegregation did not proceed effectively after Brown v. Board of Education. This Article articulates a less expected and previously undocumented cause: President Roosevelt's prior attempt at court packing slowed--even derailed--desegregation.

The story of what Roosevelt's court packing did to make the work of integration harder is a cautionary tale, particularly for those who want to alter the U.S. Supreme Court now in furtherance of a modern cause. The only reasonable route for reforming the Supreme Court must …

Delegated Corporate Voting And The Deliberative Franchise, Sarah C. Haan

Scholarly Articles

Starting in the 1930s with the earliest version of the proxy rules, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has gradually increased the proportion of “instructed” votes on the shareholder’s proxy card until, for the first time in 2022, it required a fully instructed proxy card. This evolution effectively shifted the exercise of the shareholder’s vote from the shareholders’ meeting to the vote delegation that occurs when the share-holder fills out the proxy card. The point in the electoral process when the binding voting choice is communicated is now the execution of the proxy card (assuming the shareholder completes the card …

Supplementing The Record: The Life And Career Of Judge Edmund L. Palmieri, Todd C. Peppers, Bridget Tainer-Parkins

Scholarly Articles

For approximately ninety years, lower federal court judges have hired law clerks to process the work of the courts. While the law clerks typically go on to successful careers as attorneys, law professors, government officials, and judges, it is rare that the former apprentices become so famous that their mentors are lost in their oversized shadows. This is the case, however, for former federal district court judge Edmund L. Palmieri. A highly respected jurist who sat in the Southern District of New York for over three decades, Palmieri has seemingly become the answer to the following trivial pursuit question: “What …

Book Review, Mia Swart, On Bonifratròw Street: How A Boy From Lwów Escaped The Nazis (2024), Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

On Bonifratròw Street is a book about biography, history, and law. It begins with Katz’s childhood in Lwów, Poland, before World War II. The story unwraps the backgrounds of his parents and other family members, notably his biological father, whose presence and then absence loom large in his life. The book then moves to the war. It details Katz’s life in a variety of places, including Lodz and Warsaw, among others, seen from his perspective as a teenager at the time. The book ends with Katz’s post-war emigration to the US, where he joined a distant relative. Defying odds and …

From Natchitoches To Nuremberg: The Life Of Legal Pioneer Lyria Dickason, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

Lyria was one of a small handful of women who graduated from a Louisiana law school in the 1930’s. Despite the employment barriers facing female attorneys, she went on to become one of the first female law clerks in both the federal and state judiciary. To date, Lyria’s story has not been told. I have recently discovered, however, that Lyria’s children and grandchildren preserved her letters to her family. They are a treasure trove of information about a woman whose career took her from rural Louisiana to Louisiana’s highest court as well as the post-war ruins of Nazi Germany. The …

The Gross Injustices Of Capital Punishment: A Torturous Practice And Justice Thurgood Marshall’S Astute Appraisal Of The Death Penalty’S Cruelty, Discriminatory Use, And Unconstitutionality, John D. Bessler

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Through the centuries, capital punishment and torture have been used by monarchs, authoritarian regimes, and judicial systems around the world. Although torture is now expressly outlawed by international law, capital punishment—questioned by Quakers in the seventeenth century and by the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria and many others in the following century—has been authorized over time by various legislative bodies, including in the United States. It was Beccaria’s book, Dei delitti e delle pene (1764), translated into French and then into English as An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1767), that fueled the still-ongoing international movement to outlaw the death penalty. …

Being In The Room Where It Happens: Celebrating Virginia’S First Female Law Clerks, Anne Rodgers, Todd C. Peppers

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The first female law clerk was hired in 1944. However, the entry of women into the law clerk profession was met with sexism. The accomplishments of the first few female law clerks also received little attention. This article seeks to rectify this historical injustice by highlighting the accomplishments of Virginia’s first female law clerks: Doris Bray, Jane Caster Sweeney, and Penelope Dalton Coffman. Doris Bray clerked for Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Spencer Bell in 1967. Jane Caster Sweeney clerked for Federal District Court Judge Oren Lewis from 1960 to 1962. Penelope Dalton Coffman clerked for Virginia Supreme …

Democratizing Abolition, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

When abolitionists discuss remedies for past and present injustices, they are frequently met with apparently pragmatic objections to the viability of such bold remedies in U.S. legislatures and courts held captive by reactionary forces. Previous movements have seen their lesser reforms dashed by the white supremacist capitalist order that retains its grip on power in America. While such objectors contend that abolitionists should not ask for so much justice, abolitionists should in fact demand significantly more.

Remedying our country’s history of subordination will not be complete without establishing abolition democracy. While our classical conception of a liberal republic asks us …

Voting Rights In Corporate Governance: History And Political Economy, Sarah C. Haan

Scholarly Articles

Political voting rights have become the subject of sharp legal wrangling in American political elections and the focus of headlines and popular debate. Less attention has focused on American corporate elections, where something similar has been happening: the last two decades have witnessed significant unsettling of basic shareholder voting rights, including laws and practices that were mostly stable throughout the twentieth century. Today, shareholder voting rights are in flux and, increasingly, in controversy. This Article connects the current moment of instability to the last significant era of change in shareholder voting rights—the nineteenth century—and brings historical context to a new …

Foreword: Looking Back To Move Forward: Exploring The Legacy Of U.S. Slavery, Suzette Malveaux

Scholarly Articles

This year, the 30th Annual Ira C. Rothgerber Conference brought together scholars, lawyers, and community leaders from all over the country to discuss one of the most salient issues today—the legacy of U.S. slavery. Centuries of systemic racism and discrimination following the brutal chattel slavery of African Americans has resulted in Black Americans disproportionately faring worse on virtually every economic and social measure today. Metrics along education, housing, health, environment, and justice axes reveal a country still divided along racialized fault lines. Following the through line from slavery to the present brings us to an uncomfortable place. This is where …

Playing With Words: Amar’S Nationalist Constitution, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This essay provides a balanced critique of Akhil Amar’s important book on early constitutional theory and practice. On the one hand, Amar’s work has three unique virtues. First, unlike other constitutional historians, he does not examine a particular clause or a brief time period (such as 1787‑1789), but rather analyzes the Constitution as a whole from 1760 to 1840. This holistic and longitudinal approach enables him to trace in detail the evolving constitutional views of America’s leading Founders—John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Marshall, and George Washington—and the personal relationships among those men that helped shape those …

The Chief Justice And The Page: Earl Warren, Charles Bush, And The Promise Of Brown V. Board Of Education, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

In October Term 1954, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding the implementation of the Brown decision. The resulting opinion is commonly referred to as “Brown II.” In his unanimous opinion, Chief Justice Earl Warren ordered local school districts to desegregate their schools “with all deliberate speed.” Supporters of immediate integration were dismayed by the vague language, which ultimately allowed southern states to use a variety of tactics to deliberately evade and resist the Court’s mandate that public schools be desegregated.

What has been forgotten in the discussion of Brown II and the “all deliberate speed” standard is that …

Eminent Domain And Unfettered Discretion: Lessons From A History Of U.S. Territorial Takings, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

Eminent domain is a minimal constitutional protection for private property and one that is subject to far more discretion than previously recognized by scholars. This Article traces a novel legal history of land takings within the U.S. Territories, focusing on some of the most egregious and controversial incidents and problematic patterns originating within eminent domain law. Comparing this history to recent research that demonstrates how takings in the States have disproportionately impacted Black communities, this Article articulates three patterns of injustices in takings echoing between Black mainland communities and indigenous communities in the Territories: large-scale federally funded actions, local government …

Gertrude Jenkins, Unplugged, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

Gertrude Jenkins worked for U.S. Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone until his death in 1946. Adept at multi-tasking, she also ran a boarding house to make more money. A position as a floating secretary was created for Jenkins at the Court, and she worked in other chambers as well as the Court library until October 1949, when she accepted a position in Justice Frankfurter’s chambers. Jenkins retired in August 1953.

Gertrude Jenkins’s letters neither shed light on the grand constitutional issues of her day nor provide insights into the justices’ jurisprudential views. They will not cause historians to radically reevaluate …

Arthur A. Thomas: A Hero Of A Valet, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

During his time on the Supreme Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was the beneficiary of adulation from his legal secretaries (today we refer to them as law clerks) and young legal scholars, like Felix Frankfurter and Harold Laski. While the Justice basked in the warm glow of their hero worship, he was quick to point out to them that “no man is a hero to his valet.” The phrase was not original to Holmes, although the expression sounds like it sprang from his clever mind. The underlying meaning is simple—the servant tending daily to his employer sees flaws and …

A Taxonomy Of Silencing: The Law’S 100 Year Suppression Of The Tulsa Race Massacre, Suzette Malveaux

Scholarly Articles

Over one hundred years have passed since the 1921 brutal massacre of Tulsa’s African American community. This notorious attack came at the hands of a white mob and with the government’s blessing. With numerous centennial commemorations behind us, what has been learned? The answer to this question is crucial to preventing similar atrocities in the future.

One lesson is how important it is to tell the story—to honor the voices of those who lived through one of the most infamous government-sanctioned racial attacks in U.S. history. Knowledge is power.

Another lesson is how pernicious the law can be in silencing …

The Other Ordinary Persons, Fred O. Smith, Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review

If originalism aims to center the original public meaning of text, who constitutes “the public”? Are we doing enough to capture historically excluded voices: impoverished white planters; dispossessed Natives; silenced women; and the enslaved? If not, what more is required? And for those who are not originalists, how do we ensure that, as American law consults the wisdom of the ages, we do not sever entire sources of wisdom?

This brief symposium Article engages these themes, offering two modest, interrelated claims. The first is that important informational, ethical, and democratic benefits accrue when American legal doctrine includes the voices and …

Cancelling Justice? The Case Of James Clark Mcreynolds, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

Over the last several years, there has been a vigorous debate as to whether monuments and memorials of Confederate leaders and controversial historical figures should be purged from the public square. These conversations have included former Supreme Court justices and have led to the removal of multiple statues of former Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the infamous “Dred Scott” decision. Drawing on the arguments mounted for and against the removal of statues, this article explores the decision of a small liberal arts college to strip the name of former Supreme Court Justice James Clark McReynolds from a campus building. …

‘A Hussy Who Rode On Horseback In Sexy Underwear In Front Of The Prisoners’: The Trials Of Buchenwald’S Ilse Koch, Mark A. Drumbl, Solange Mouthaan

Scholarly Articles

Ilse Koch’s trials for her role in atrocities at the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp served as visual spectacles and primed her portrayal in media and public spaces. Koch’s conduct was credibly rumored to be one of frequent affairs, simultaneous lovers, and the sexual humiliation of prisoners. The gendered construction of her sexual identity played a distortive role in her intersections with law and with post-conflict Germany. Koch’s trials revealed two different dynamics. Koch’s actions were refracted through a patriarchal lens which spectacularized female violence and served as an optical space to (re)establish appropriate feminine mores. Feminist critiques of Koch’s trials …

Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller And The Great Mustache Debate Of 1888, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

Over the long history of the Supreme Court, nominees to the highest court in the land have been opposed for a variety of reasons. Often opponents are concerned about the nominee’s political ideology or competency. Occasionally, allegations are raised about political cronyism. And candidates have come under fire for their religion. But nominee Melville Weston Fuller’s selection launched a national debate that went to the very heart of what makes one qualified to sit on the Supreme Court: whether a judge should have a mustache.

On March 23, 1888, Morrison R. Waite died of pneumonia after sitting for fourteen years …

A Secretary's Absence For A Law School Examination, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

The May 5, 1893 letter from Justice Horace Gray to Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller touches upon several different strands of Supreme Court history. To place the letter in context, we need to briefly discuss the creation of the law clerk position as well as the different functions of this first generation of law clerks. And we need to talk about the untimely death of a young Harvard Law School graduate named Moses Day Kimball.

Memorializing Dissent: Justice Pal In Tokyo, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Memorials and monuments are envisioned as positive ways to honor victims of atrocity. Such displays are taken as intrinsically benign, respectful, and in accord with the arc of justice. Is this correlation axiomatic, however? Art, after all, may be a vehicle for multiple normativities, contested experiences, and variable veracities. Hence, in order to really speak about the relationships between the aesthetic and international criminal law, one must consider the full range of initiatives—whether pop-up ventures, alleyway graffiti, impromptu ceremonies, street art, and grassroots public histories—prompted by international criminal trials. Courts may be able to stage their own outreach, to be …

An Inside History Of The Burger Court's Patent Eligibility Jurisprudence, Christopher B. Seaman, Sheena X. Wang

Scholarly Articles

Patent eligibility is one of the most important and controversial issues in intellectual property law. Although the relevant constitutional and statutory text is extremely broad, the Supreme Court has significantly narrowed the scope of patentable eligibility by creating exceptions for inventions directed to abstract ideas, laws of nature, and natural phenomenon. In particular, the Supreme Court’s decisions on this issue over the past decade have created considerable uncertainty regarding the patentability of important innovations. As a result, numerous stakeholders have called for reform of the current rules regarding patent eligibility, and members of Congress have introduced legislation to amend the …

Correspondence With The Chief Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States, Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Powell Correspondence

No abstract provided.

Mourning The Magnificent Yankee: The Funeral Of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

Funerals of Supreme Court Justices are now complicated and highly choreographed affairs. Lying in repose in the Great Hall at the Supreme Court. Funeral services in the grand Washington National Cathedral. Eulogies from fellow Justices, former law clerks, and prominent legal figures. Live coverage by national television networks. But for one of the greatest jurists to sit on the Supreme Court, a simple Unitarian service and the rites accorded an old soldier sufficed.

Church History, Liberty, And Political Morality: A Response To Professor Calhoun, Ian Huyett

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In his address, Professor Calhoun used American Christian abolitionism to illustrate the beneficial role that religion can play in political debate. Surveying the past two millennia, I argue that Christian political thought has protected liberty in every era of the church’s dramatic history. Along the way, I rebut critics—from the left and right—who urge that Christianity’s political influence has been unhelpful or harmful. I also seek to show that statements like “religion has no place in politics” are best understood as expressions of arbitrary bias.