Legal History Commons^™

The Thousandth Man: A Biography Of James Mcgregor Stewart By Barry Cahill, Timothy C. Matthews

Dalhousie Law Journal

Barry Cahill, senior government archivist at Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, and former editor of the Nova Scotia Historical Review, has painstakingly delved into the social, political, educational and legal atmosphere of the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries in Nova Scotia, by researching and writing a fascinating biography of James McGregor Stewart, now published on behalf of the Osgoode Society. The book succeeds in portraying both the humanity of this Renaissance man and his pivotal role in so many different milieux, such that Canadian Lawyer could and would refer to him as the most …

Cyberspace And The "Devil's Hatband", Jonathan J. Rusch

Seattle University Law Review

In this Article, I maintain that while there is an ongoing conflict of legal traditions over the desirability of fences in cyberspace, there are definite virtues in the creation of such fences, so long as we understand the physical, psychological, and moral dimensions of that process. Part I will present a brief survey of the history of barbed wire in the Old West, paying particular attention to the contending legal traditions that affected the manner and extent of that growth in the West. These contending legal traditions, which related to "fencing in" versus "fencing out" cattle, played a key role …

Security For A Commercial Loan: Historical & International Perspectives, Edward A. Tomlinson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Tricky Magic: Blacks As Immigrants And The Paradox Of Foreignness, Lolita K. Buckner Inniss

Publications

Since the beginning of the nation, white Americans have suffered from a deep inner uncertainty as to who they really are. One of the ways that has been used to simplify the answer has been to seize upon the presence of black Americans and use them as a marker, a symbol of limits, a metaphor for the "outsider." Many whites could look at the social position of blacks and feel that color formed an easy and reliable gauge for determining to what extent one was or was not American. Perhaps that is why one of the first epithets that many …

Book Review. Roman Law After The Fall Of Rome, David V. Snyder

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Review of: Stein, Peter, Roman Law in European History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

The Course Of Law Cannot Be Stopped': The Aftermath Of The Cumberland Rebellion In The Civil Courts Of Nova Scotia, Jim Phillips, Ernest A. Clarke

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article examines a series of cases launched in the Nova Scotia courts following the Cumberland Rebellion of 1776. In these cases loyalists sued former rebels, including those granted amnesty by the authorities, for losses sustained during the rebellion. The article traces the history of the cases and places them in the context of post-rebellion government policy. It argues that such proceedings were without precedent and effectively took the place of official schemes of expropriation of rebel land and compensation to loyalists. It also suggests that the use of civil courts in this way prolonged and exacerbated the social and …

Collective Violence In Ferryland District, Newfoundland, 1788, Christopher English

Dalhousie Law Journal

In September 1788 a court found 114 men guilty of riotous assembly in the district of Ferryland the previous winter. This event is remarkable for the number involved (45% of the adult male population of the district); for the number of charges (21% of all civil and criminal actions heard in the district's courts over the next 25 years); for the absence of damage to property; and for the severity of the sentences, which included loss of wages, flogging, transportation and banishment. These proceedings occurred in a community where *the majority (Irish planters, fishermen and apprentices) were socially distinct from …

Acquiring The Law: The Private Law Library Of William Young, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1835, William Laurence

Dalhousie Law Journal

In 1835, Halifax lawyer William Young, who would later become premier and chief justice of Nova Scotia, as well as a founder of Dalhousie Law School, compiled a catalogue of his personal law library. In the catalogue, Young identifiedthe short title, the price, and if applicable, the number of copies or volumes, for each item in his collection. Through an examination of Young's catalogue, as well as contemporary correspondence, journals, and business records, and, where identifiable, Young's former texts, this study discusses the nature, sources, and to a certain extent, the actual use of Young's law library. This study demonstrates …

Remembering The Fourth Circuit Judges: A History From 1941 To 1998

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

How To Tell Law Stories, Michael Grossberg

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Curses, Oaths, Ordeals And Tials Of Animals, Alan Watson

Scholarly Works

To the outsider, a foreign legal system may at times appear irrational, with a belief in the efficacy, usually with supernatural assistance, of curses, oaths and ordeals, and that animals may properly be punished, even restrained from anti-human behaviour, after a criminal trial. But caution must be exercised. There may be little real belief that the deity will intervene-for instance, that the ordeal will reveal guilt or innocence. Rather, the society may be faced with an intolerable problem, with no reasonable solution, and the participants may resort to extraordinary legal measures as a "Last Best Chance", or "The Second Best". …

Cultural Criticism Of Law, Guyora Binder, Robert Weisberg

Journal Articles

Professors Binder and Weisberg expound a "cultural criticism" of law that views law as an arena for composing, representing, and contesting identity, and that treats identity as constitutive of the interests that motivate instrumental action. They explicate this critical method by reference to "New Historicist" literary criticism, postmodern social theory, and Nietzchean aesthetics. They illustrate this method by reviewing recent scholarship of two kinds: First, they explore how legal disputes take on expressive meaning for parties and observers against the background of legal norms regulating or recognizing identities. Second, they examine "readings" of the representations of character, credit, and value …

Canadian State Trials, Vol. 1, Michael Boudreau

Dalhousie Law Journal

In a letter to Deputy Judge Advocate Charles Gould, dated 10 April 1762, General Thomas Gage, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America, wrote with regard to the proceedings of the general courts martial in Montreal that "it is a Maxim held by all Civilians That no government can subsist without Law." Over half a century later in Bay Roberts, Newfoundland, William Elenes filed an affidavit with the Harbour Grace Sessions Court alleging that a group of men stole some potatoes from his house. "Late in March of [ 1817]," the statement read, "John McGrath with a gun and two …

Inside The Law: Canadian Law Firms In Historical Perspective, Douglas C. Harris

Dalhousie Law Journal

This collection of essays edited by Carol Wilton' chronicles the changing character of Canadian law firms from the "golden age" of the sole practitioner in the nineteenth century to the mega-firms of the late twentieth. Most of the essays describe the changing profession through a case study of a single lawyer or firm, and Wilton has collected a representative sample of firms from across the country. Some of the firms remained small or disappeared, while others grew into full-service corporate commercial law firms of several hundred lawyers. Most of the essays focus on the personalities of the lawyers involved, their …

Baltimore Bound: Article Xiii, Section 1, "New Counties," Of The Maryland Constitution And The Baltimore City Annexation Acts Of 1888 And 1918, Michele Lefaivre

Legal History Publications

This paper examines the extension of Baltimore's boundaries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century within the legal process which authorized it.

History Of The Court Reporter In The Appellate Courts Of Pennsylvania, Joel Fishman

Law Faculty Publications

States have traditionally published the decisions of their intermediate and highest courts.¹ Legal historians, in recent years, have written extensively on the history of court reporting and court reports.² These historical accounts have revealed that many famous judges and lawyers throughout the country gained prominent reputations stemming from the publishing of their decisions.³ In the "nineteenth century, the development of court reports received attention from the legal community through reviews in many of the leading periodicals of the day."⁴ By 1900, however, the periodical literature contained only a small number of reviews of individual state reports. …

Dutch Uncle Sam: Immigration Reform And Notions Of Family, Lolita Buckner Inniss

Publications

No abstract provided.

"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 …

The National Forest Management Act: The Twenty Years Behind, The Twenty Years Ahead, Charles F. Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Bearing Arms In Washington State, Hugh D. Spitzer

Articles

Article I, Section 24 of the Washington State Constitution directly affects two "hot topics" today: first, the increase in the carrying of weapons by the citizenry (particularly concealed weapons, with or without permits) and, second, the increase in "citizen militias" in various parts of the state. Article I, Section 24 also presents interesting issues from a pure state-constitutional-law standpoint, because it represents one of the striking characteristics of state constitutions: these basic documents of civil society for each state represent centuries of buildup and accretion. State constitutional provisions can often be analyzed in terms of layering. In preparing a state …

A New Image Of The Slave Auction: An Empirical Look At The Role Of Law In Slave Sales And A Conceptual Reevaluation Of The Nature Of Slave Property, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This legal history article presents a new understanding of the nature of slave property. Slave property was divided and fragmented into many different interests including those with application to real property such life estates, remainders, shifting and spring interests, and leasehold interests. With regard to these interests, the article overlays the first-year, law-school property course onto slaves as property. Property interests in slaves were also divided by credit mechanisms including mortgages and secured credit transactions. Warranties are another example of divided property interests in slaves.

The fragmented, Hohfeldian nature of slave property distributed the stake that southerners had in the …

Characterization Of Limitation Statutes In Canadian Private International Law: The Rocky Road Of Change, John P. Mcevoy

Dalhousie Law Journal

Prior to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Tolofson v. Jensen limitations statutes were characterized, prima facie, as procedural for purposes of Canadian private international law. The principal authority for this characterization was the 1835 case of Huber v. Steiner in which an action was brought on a promissory note made in France in 1813 and payable in 1817. The defendant argued that the French Code de commerce applied and that the right of action was extinguished by the provision that "all actions ... prescribe themselves by five years reckoning from the day of protest ..... Tindal C.J. recognized …

Perjury: An Anthology, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Professor Underwood takes an in-depth look at the occurrence of perjury from ancient Rome to the O.J. Simpson trial. This journey through time provides insight into the motives of perjurers, the difficulties involved in catching them; and the alarming frequency with which they succeed, unchastised.

Law Reports From A Non-Colony And A Penal Colony: The Australian Manuscript Decisions Of Sir Francis Forbes As Chief Justice Of Newfoundland, Bruce Kercher

Dalhousie Law Journal

The author reports on the existence and contents of a manuscript copy of a selection of judgments by Sir Francis Forbes while he was Chief Justice of Newfoundland from 1817-1822. The manuscript found its way into the State Library of New South Wales sometime after Forbes' translation to New South Wales as its first Chief Justice in 1823. The author comments on the insights these manuscript reports afford of the early legal history of Newfoundland as it developed into a British colony. In particular, he draws attention to the significance of twenty-nine judgments in the manuscript but not available in …

Articles Sell Best Singly: The Disruption Of Slave Families At Court Sales, Thomas D. Russell

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This legal history article presents the empirical finding that the risk of family separation at slave auctions was higher at court-ordered and court-supervised sales as compared with private sales of capitalist auctioneers. The article also examines legal and ideological justification for the destruction of slave families. Law served to disguise human agency in the breakup of slave families.

This article builds upon the author’s earlier finding that a majority of slave auctions in South Carolina were conducted by the courts. The data for this article and the previous study were drawn from antebellum primary sources including trial-court records, the salesbooks …

Plessy V. Ferguson – 100 Years Later, Hon. John Minor Wisdom

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Home Dance, The Hopi, And Black Mesa Coal: Conquest And Endurance In The American Southwest, Charles F. Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Public Lands And The National Heritage, Charles F. Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

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 Mi'kmaq And The Fishery: Beyond Food Requirements, Bruce H. Wildsmith

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Mi'kmaq, the traditional Aboriginal nation in Nova Scotia, are struggling to find their place in the modern fishery. Significant milestones have been achieved, including the Denny, Paul and Sylliboy (N.S.C.A.) case establishing the right of the Mi'kmaq to harvest fish for food and the Simon (S.C.C.) case affirming the continuing validityof the Mi'kmaq Treatyof 1752, a treaty that contains an express right to sell fish. Though fishing by the Mi'kmaq for food no longer appears to be a subject of controversy (assuming the needs of conservation have been met), the spectre of commercial aspects to the Mi'kmaq fishery is …