Legal History Commons^™

A Dissent From The Miranda Dissents: Some Comments On The 'New' Fifth Amendment And The Old 'Voluntariness' Test, Yale Kamisar

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F the several conferences and workshops (and many lunch conversations) on police interrogation and confessions in which I have participated this past summer3 are any indication, Miranda v. Arizona' has evoked much anger and spread much sorrow among judges, lawyers and professors. In the months and years ahead, such reaction is likely to be translated into microscopic analyses and relentless, probing criticism of the majority opinion. During this period of agonizing appraisal and reappraisal, I think it important that various assumptions and assertions in the dissenting opinions do not escape attention.

The Law School Of The University Of Michigan: 1859 - 1959, Elizabeth Gaspar Brown

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On October 3, 1959, the law school of the University of Michigan will have completed a hundred years of functioning existence. A century earlier, on October 3, 1859, James Valentine Campbell delivered an address On the Study of the Law at the Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, officially opening the law department.

Code Making In Early Oregon, Arthur S. Beardsley

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This article was originally printed in the Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 27 (Jan. 1936), 3-33. For the purpose of reprinting, the author has revised and expanded it, and in doing so has had the benefit of certain valuable suggestions from Mr. J. Nielson Barry of Portland, Oregon.

The Courts And Early Bar Of Washington Territory, Arthur S. Beardsley, Donald A. Mcdonald

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Territorial justice in Washington had its roots in the judicial system of Oregon Territory, where the need for the administration of law and order was the motivating force which initiated the formation of civil authority The administration of justice, like the civil authority, must expand as the population grows and as the territorial area becomes larger and better organized. Strong men are always needed in the administration of justice; but in the frontier settlement where law and order are often flouted with impunity, even stronger men are needed if the courts are to command the respect which is their due. …

Early Efforts To Locate The Capital Of Washington Territory, Arthur S. Beardsley

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Several political controversies began with the organization of the territorial government of Washington in 1854, grew in intensity with the passage of years, and did not end on the proclamation of statehood in 1889. Among such controversies was the fight for the location of the capital. In fact, contention over the location of the seat of territorial and state government did not cease until the completion of the capitol building in 1927. During the interval of seventy-three years many efforts were made to relocate the capital, and at some time in this period nearly every important city within the present …

Later Attempts To Relocate The Capital Of Washington, Arthur S. Beardsley

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The controversy over the location of the seat of government, which had flared up frequently in Washington Territory during the period 1855-1875, was comparatively dormant in the following decade. With the coming of the railroads, the discovery of gold in the Fraser River country and Idaho, the use of irrigation in central Washington, the growth of the sheep and cattle business, the increase in commerce on the Columbia and Snake rivers, the development of the lumber and fishing industries west of the Cascade Range, the population of all sections of the territory rapidly increased, and Washington Territory was soon to …

The Codes And Code Makers Of Washington, 1889-1937, Arthur S. Beardsley

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Under the provisions of the Organic Act of Washington Territory, Congress had agreed to provide for the publication of the territorial statutes; hence, so long as Congress was willing to assume the cost of the publication of these territorial laws under the guise of a codification of the statutes, but little attention toward the preparation of a compilation, in the form in which this term is generally understood, was likely. The agitation for statutory reform, which consumed no small part of the time of the various territorial legislative sessions, was not motivated by a hope for a code of the …

Compiling The Territorial Codes Of Washington, Arthur S. Beardsley

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The story of the codes of laws which have been used in the Territory of Washington is little known. Little has been said of their influence on the legal history of the territory and state, and less has been recorded concerning those whose legal skill has produced these codifications. Some phases of the historical influences which form the background of the codes Washington Territory, and the important parts played by their makers, have become either lost or shrouded in oblivion. In the not far distant future the stories of other phases of this legal history may pass from the memory …

Recognition Of New Types Of Negotiable Instruments, Ralph W. Aigler

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“The expression ‘negotiable instrument’ is one of variable meaning, and what is meant thereby often can be determined only by the context… Primarily ‘negotiable’ indicates transferability with a certain facility…..

“It may be not without interest to consider how instruments gain the negotiable quality and to trace, sketchily perhaps, the process of recognition.”

Commercial Instruments, The Law Merchant And Negotiability, Ralph W. Aigler

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“Until recently apparently no serious attempt had been to make a comprehensive examination into the origins and history of commercial instruments or to explain the special doctrines attached to negotiability….

“The bill of exchange, it is said, developed as a bit of machinery to give effect to the medieval contract of cambium which was concerned with the special case of the exchange of money for money. With the growth of foreign trade the difficulties and dangers of payments multiplied. Naturally those whose business it was to exchange monies were resorted to in this connection. They, in turn, out of necessities …

What The American Law Institute Means To The Law School, Herbert F. Goodrich

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"While in no sense a law school affair, the American Law Institute is so intimately connected with the progress of the law and legal education that it justifies mention here. The Institute was organized at a meeting of judges, lawyers and law teachers, held in Washington in February, 1923.... The Law School of the University of Michigan is and will continue to be intimately connected with this movement for the improvement of the law...."

Les Gouvernements Ou États Non Reconnus En Droit Anglais Et Américain, Edwin D. Dickinson

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Professor Dickinson tackles the subject of non-recognition of governments or states in English and American law: "Pour conclure, voici les propositions de l'auteur. La reconnaissance d'un Gouvernement or Etat etranger est exclusivement une question politique. L'existence d'un Gouvernement ou Etat etranger est exclusivement une question de fait.... C'est une chose deja grave que de voir d'une menace dans les conflits diplomatiques..."

The Constitution And Nationalism, Henry M. Bates

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Dean Bates comments on the alarming trend of nationalism in America: "Blind indeed must he be who supposes that our legal and political institutions can escape profound modification by those great changes in commercial, industrial, political and social conditions which, in part, were caused by the world war, but were greatly intensified by it.... No intelligent person, who has any knowledge of history and of the protection which local government has always given to human freedom, can fail to feel a deep and at times shuddering sense of apprehension at the rapidity with which we are massing our governmental power …

Some Aspects Of Fifteenth Century Chancery, Willard T. Barbour

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IT is now more than thirty years since Justice Holmes in a brilliant and daring essay set on foot an inquiry which has revealed the remote beginnings of English equity. Equity and common law originated in one and the same procedure and existed for a long time, not only side by side, but quite undifferentiated from each other. Their origin is to be found in the system of royal justice which the genius of Henry II converted into the common law; but this royal justice was in the beginning as much outside of, or even antagonistic to, the ordinary judicial …

Partnership Entity And Tenancy In Partnership: The Struggle For A Definition, Joseph H. Drake

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PARTNERSHIP is a legal entity formed by the association of two or more persons. This definition of a partnership as a person or entity represents what may be characterized as a generally accepted theory among American jurists at the time of its publication in 1893. But a later definition says: "A partnership is an association of two more persons." "A partner is co-owner with his partners of specific partnership property holding as a tenant in partnership." The second definition shows that the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws have rejected the entity theory and coined a new term to describe partnership …

The Inefficiency Of The American Jury, Edson R. Sunderland

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What is proposed in the present article is to show that in attempting to preserve the independence of the jury in its exclusive juris- diction over questions of fact, the people and the courts in most American jurisdictions have departed from the common law practice and have introduced a principle calculated to undermine the very institution which they wish to strengthen. That is to say, through the rules prohibiting judges from commenting on the weight of the evidence, juries tend to become irresponsible, verdicts tend to become matters of chance, and the intricacy of procedure, with its cost, delay and …

Corporations And Express Trusts As Business Organizations, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

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PRESIDENT BUTLER of Columbia University is reported to have said in an address before the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1911, that "the limited liability corporation is the greatest single discovery of modem times, whether you judge it by its social, by its ethical, by its industrial, or, in the long run--after we understand it and know how to use it,--by its political, effects." 1

Pecote': A Bit Of Legal Archaeology, Joseph H. Drake

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In the case of Pusey v. Pusey, 1 Vern. 273 (1684), the "bil was, that a horn, which time out of mind had gone along with the plaintiff's estate, and was delivered, to his ancestors in ancient times to hold their land by, might be delivered to him; upon which horn was the inscription, viz. pecote this horn to hold huy thy land." The bill was demurred to in that the plaintiff did not by his bill pretend to be entitled to this horn, either as executor or devisee; nor had he in his bill charged it to be an …

The Law In Its Relation To Morals And Religion, Edwin C. Goddard

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"Man is a religious being... Man has never lived to himself alone. His natural state has ever been a social one, in which development and enjoyment became possible only by mutual inter-dependence and social intimacy. Government is not an invention, not a necessary evil to which men submit. On the contrary... it has been man's natural instrument for controlling and developing the social estate so essential to his very existence ... [a]nd universally this government has been more or less closely related to religious institutions."

Power Of Governor-General To Expel Resident Aliens From Insular Territory Of The United States, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

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In the case of Forbes et al. v. Chuoco Tiaco, decided by the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands July 30, 1910, 8 Off. Gaz., p. 1778, some of the most interesting, important, and fundamental questions were presented and determined for the time being, but not settled, it is reasonably safe to say until passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States. The questions involved were whether the Governor General of the Philippine Islands has the power to expel resident Chinese aliens without a hearing or an opportunity to be heard, and whether the Governor, if he exceeded …

The Struggle For A Perpetuity, John R. Rood

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It is natural for us moderns to conceive of the right to alienate as an inseparable incident of ownership, since we have known no other condition; and in the modern books and decisions the subject is generally disposed of with the curt statement as if it were a truism. It is believed that to such as are not familiar with the history of that doctrine a review of the struggle through centuries, by which it was finally established on its present firm foundation, would not be devoid of interest.

English Law As An Exponent Of English History, Edson R. Sunderland

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It is not my purpose to unduly emphasize the light which the study of the laws of a people throws upon its character and development. The teaching of history should be broad enough to recognize the importance of all sides of national life. But I believe there has never been a sufficient appreciation of the real wealth of suggestive and illuminating material which is contained in the history of English law. For the English have been pre-eminently a legal race. In the study of Roman History Roman Law has always occupied a prominent place. The Romans made their reputation, so …

Are Too Many Executive Officers Elective?, Bradley M. Thompson

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We propose very briefly to call attention, to so much of the present constitution of Michigan as has to do with the executive department, and to consider the methods which the people have adopted for selecting those public servants whose official duty it is to enforce the law, to maintain public order and protect private rights.

Some Observations On Case Law Reporting, John R. Rood

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There is an old tradition, still believed by many lawyers, that these year-books were official reports made by a reporter appointed and paid by the king. If there ever was such a reporter, he is yet to be discovered. No year-books have been found in the treasury of the courts; there is no record of the appointment or payment of any official reporter, through all the two hundred and fifty years covered by the year-books; all the year-books now in the British Museum were found in private hands.2 Is it conceivable that an official reporter would criticize the court and …

Statute Of Uses And The Modern Deed, John R. Rood

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To what extent does the modem conveyance of estates in land in the United States by deed derive its validity from the English Statute of Uses, 27 Hen. 8, c. IO? No doubt the student, and especially the teacher, is inclined to magnify the importance of mere matters of history, because it is so much easier to understand or explain many of the terms and doctrines of real property law by approaching them historically, and, indeed, many of them cannot otherwise be understood at all. And yet we all have this constant, serious, and often difficult task, of separating matter …

Need Of A National Incorporation Law, Horace Lafayette Wilgus

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When the report of the Committee on Uniformity of legislation was submitted to the last American Bar Association, and consideration of the legal problems growing out of modem commercial combinations, was urged as a matter proper for discussion and action by that association, it was gravely argued by distinguished lawyers present that there was no legal problem to be solved. The Committee on Commercial Law, however, thought otherwise and said:- "The American people look to the American Bar for leadership on this question. Some one must lead. If not the lawyer, then it will be the demagogue."

The Courts Of Judea, Jerome C. Knowlton

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The study of Jewish jurisprudence has become interesting during the past ten years through the efforts of some painstaking scholars, who have not been burdened with any particular dogma, but have been actuated by a true Christian spirit. They have been close students of those portions of the Talmud which throw light on the jurisprudence of the Jews.

Materials Of Jurisprudence, James V. Campbell

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This period is marked by rather more strenuous efforts than have been made before in this country, to solve the problem of condensing and simplifying the law. Our own day is peculiar in the endeavors we have seen to evolve what is claimed to be a science of jurisprudence. Some admirable writers have succeeded in dividing the domain of law into its larger or smaller fields, and have shown with more or less fulness the relative positions of these, and their mutual dependence. This is a valuable service; for all lawyers know that, without a reasonably clear perception of the …

Limits To State Control Of Private Business, Thomas M. Cooley

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The present purpose is to inquire whether, in the matter of the regulation of property rights and of business, legislation has not of late been occupying doubtful, possibly unconstitutional grounds. The discussion in the main must be limited to fundamental.-principles, aided by such light as legal and constitutional history may throw upon them, since the express provisions of the constitutions can give little assistance. They always contain the general guaranty of due process of law to life, liberty, and property, but in other particulars they for the most part leave protection to principles which have come from the common law. …

The Method Of Electing The President, Thomas M. Cooley, Abram S. Hewitt

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Twice in the history of the United States the nation has been brought to the verge of civil war by difficulties growing out of presidential elections. And yet no system was ever devised with more care to preclude any reasonable complaint.