DOCSLIB.ORG

Reason of Slavery: Understanding the Judicial Role in the Peculiar Institution

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Reason of Slavery: Understanding the Judicial Role in the Peculiar Institution Vanderbilt Law Review Volume 32 Issue 1 Issue 1 - Symposia: The Legal History of Article 2 the South 1-1979 Reason of Slavery: Understanding the Judicial Role in the Peculiar Institution A. E. Keir Nash Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr Part of the Legal History Commons, State and Local Government Law Commons, and the Supreme Court of the United States Commons Recommended Citation A. E. Keir Nash, Reason of Slavery: Understanding the Judicial Role in the Peculiar Institution, 32 Vanderbilt Law Review 7 (1979) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol32/iss1/2 This Symposium is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reason of Slavery: Understanding the Judicial Role in the Peculiar Institutiont A. E. Keir Nash* TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................. ..... 8 PART ONE: REFLECTIONS ON VARYING INTERPRETATIONS 13 A. Four Reasons for Examining the Interpretive Differ- ences ........................................ 13 B. Tushnet's View of the State of Scholarly Affairs .... 18 C. "Black Justice" Below the Appellate Court Level, and Four Whiggeries ............................... 26 D. Hindus' South Carolina, Howington's Tennessee, and "Black Justice" in the Western Penal Tradition ..... .36 E. Understanding Appellate Decisionmaking: Flanigan, Nash, and Cover .................................. 70 PART Two: FINDING THE JUDICIAL CONSCIENCE OF KING COTTON: A THREE-STATE COMPARISON OF AP- PELLATE SUITS FOR FREEDOM . ........... 93 A. Posing the Critical Questions: Were There Significant Differences Among JudicialAttitudes? ......... .... 93 B. Major Issues in Suits for Freedom ............... 98 C. Ardent Pro-Slavery and the Georgia Supreme Court ... 104 D. "A Vexed and Perplexing Question": Manumission Be- fore the Tennessee and Virginia Courts ............. 123 (1) Politics, Pro-Slavery, and the Bench - Two Ex- amples .................................. 123 I am indebted to numerous persons for assistance and encouragement in the writing of this Article. The contributions of four have been so helpful as to warrant particular men- tion. Iam especially grateful to: Thomas S. Schrock (Political Science, University of Califor- nia, Santa Barbara) for blending just the right amounts of vigorous criticism of a draft of this Article and encouragement to complete it; Carl N. Degler (History, Stanford University) and Carl V. Harris (History, University of California, Santa Barbara) for reading an earlier manu- script on the subject, and causing me to rethink though not entirely to abjure my approach to the law of slavery; and Mark Tushnet (Law, University of Wisconsin, Madison) for a fruitful exchange of correspondence concerning the differences between his views of the law of slavery and my own. * Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, Cali- fornia. A.B., Harvard College, 1958; M.A., University of North Carolina, 1961; Ph.D., Har- vard University. 1968. 7 8 VANDERBILT LAW REVIEW [Vol. 32:7 (2) Precedent and the Make-Up of the Virginia Court in 1830-1831 .............................. 127 (3) Liberal Gropings of the 1830's? - The Maria Tangle ..... ............................. 146 (4) North Carolina's and Tennessee's Alternate Solu- tions to Maria ............................. 156 (5) The Distribution of Virginia Judicial Behavior and Attitudes, 1831-1849 ..................... ... 158 (6) Precedent and the Tennessee Court to 1835 ...... 164 (7) The Tennessee Court and Manumission, 1835-1860 172 (8) Populism and the Virginia Switch of 1858 ....... .179 PART THREE: SHAPE, CHANGE, AND INTENT IN THE LAW OF SLAVERY 184 A. Unity and Diversity in the Law of Slavery ........... 186 (1) Scope, Penetration and Severity in Statutory Law 186 (2) Unity and Diversity in Judge-Made Law ........ 190 B. The Law's Intent and Function: Using and Abusing the English Language in Order To Generalize ........... 205 INTRODUCTION During the first century of the American republic, the South, besides losing the Civil War, fared poorly with respect to the aveng- ing role of historiography.' Not merely did the inadequacies of Jef- ferson Davis,2 southern industrial backwardness, noncompatible railroad gauges,3 and illusions about King Cotton's capacity to com- pel European support for the beleaguered Confederacy, produce de- feat for the cause of complete legal subjugation of black to white. In addition, despite claims that may strike later generations as ex- cessive,5 southern belles-lettres ran a poor second to the writings of New England authors. It was not simply that-in the words of that rara avis, a Unionist South Carolina politician-the South, having miscalculated, had to endure sufferings "as no civilized people ever did in this Christian age [because] . [u]nder the . cruel 1. See H. BurrERFIELD, THE WHIG INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY (1931). "It has been said that the historian is the avenger, and that standing as a judge between the parties and rivalries and causes of bygone generations he can lift up the fallen and beat down the proud .... ." Id. at 1. 2. See D. PowrER, THE SourH AND TH SECTIONAL CoNIrcr 263-86 (1968). 3. See R. BLACK, THE RAILROADS OF THE CONFEDERACY (1952). 4. See F. OwsLEY, KING COTrON DIPLOMACY (1931). 5. "In fiction Gilmore Simms stands pre-eminent, and ranks with Cooper . .. 'The Works of John C. Calhoun,' in six volumes, are equal in merit to Aristotle's Politics and Ethics. The writings of Hugh S. Legare . are unsurpassed for classical lore, style and interest." B. PERRY, REMINISCENCES OF PUBLIC MEN 368 (1889). 1979J1 REASON OF SLAVERY 9 rule of our national government, . former slaves, ignorant and semi-savage, were placed over us, led on by the most unprincipled adventurers, black and white, from the North . ." Equally ap- palling for Benjamin F. Perry, and despite the amazing circum- stance that in the entire history of prewar days so "moral and pa- triotic [a] tone . pervaded"' South Carolina politics that "[n]o charge of bribery or corruption was ever made against any . legislators or public officers," South Carolina and her allies were bested not merely in the rude encounters of sword but also in the future-conditioning interplay of word and pen. Whereas "[i]n Mas- sachusetts, as soon as one of her prominent citizens [was] dead, some literary friend [stepped] forward to write his life,", in the South "scarcely a life of any of her eminent sons" 0 was penned at all. Consequently, education gave to "New England . a control- ling influence over the public sentiment of America. Her literature, her books, her newspapers and magazines, . are at this time . influencing and controlling our opinions and actions."" Making due allowances for anti-Reconstruction and Victorian hyperbole, Benjamin F. Perry had a point-at the time. The literary and historical course of the century since he wrote has largely re- dressed the imbalance-at least in terms of fictional and historical composition in general. But for the specifics of the legal history of these United States, historiography's avenging role has not been quite so equalizing. This is especially true with respect to what is central to any attempt to gain adequately the remembrance of southern legal things past-understanding the relationships be- tween lash and law, comprehending the "reason of slavery."" One of the more intriguing aspects of the historiography of United States slavery is how slow it was to show systematic interest in the peculiar institution's legal history. To be sure, during the early and middle 1800's slavery did not lack legal compilers and commentators.' Nonetheless, until the editorial labors of Helen 6. Id. at 364. Plainly, Perry suffered from not having read the Revisionist views on the matter. See, e.g., RECONSTRUCTION (K. Stampp & L. Litwack eds. 1969). 7. B. PERRY, supra note 5, at 366. 8. Id. 9. Id. at 368-69. 10. Id. at 369. 11. Id. at 373. 12. By "reason of slavery" I am analogizing to the idea of "raison d'etat." See F. MEINECKE, DIE IDEE DER STAATSRXSON IN DER NEUEREN GESCeHicHTE (1924). 13. T. CoBB, AN INQUIRy IrO THE LAW OF NEGRO SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (1858); W. GOODELL, THE AMERICAN SLAVE CODE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE (1853); J. HURD, THE LAW OF FREEDOM AND BONDAGE IN THE UNITED STATES (2 vols.) (1858-1862); G. STRoUD, A SKETCH OF THE LAWS RELATING TO SLAVERY IN THE SEVERAL STATES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (1827); J. WHEELER, A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE LAW OF SLAVERY (1837). 10 VANDERBILT LAW REVIEW [Vol. 32:7 Tunnicliffe Catterall during the 1920's and early 1930's" there was no serious effort by post-bellum historians to assemble the case-law data. Even so, with two partial subsequent exceptions" there was little systematic analysis until the 1960's. Catterall's labors initially did no more than cause later historians to make tip-of-the-hat dips into her congeries of data, using a case here and there much as one might employ an antebellum traveller's narrative to lend illustra- tive support to a social or political point. There are two important reasons for this initial limited use. First, the early post-bellum historians fought the "paradigmatic battles" on other territory, where legal structures and case-law de- velopments were pressed into the service of one side or the other in a largely ancillary fashion. Second, case-law data was used spar- ingly because of the rigid boundaries of inquiry set by traditional American legal history, particularly those that, by isolating law from society, polity, and economy, produced a narrow scholarly emphasis upon whatever seemed "autonomous about the legal order-courts, equitable maxims, motions for summary judg- ment,"6 and so forth. This separation of the internal "box"' of the law from everything outside was hardly conducive to emphasizing the legal history of slavery, an area that derives its interest chiefly from the relationships between law and the larger sociopolitical world of antebellum America.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Slavery in America: the Montgomery Slave Trade
    Slavery In America The Montgomery Trade Slave 1 2 In 2013, with support from the Black Heritage Council, the Equal Justice Initiative erected three markers in downtown Montgomery documenting the city’s prominent role in the 19th century Domestic Slave Trade. The Montgomery Trade Slave Slavery In America 4 CONTENTS The Montgomery Trade Slave 6 Slavery In America INTRODUCTION SLAVERY IN AMERICA 8 Inventing Racial Inferiority: How American Slavery Was Different 12 Religion and Slavery 14 The Lives and Fears of America’s Enslaved People 15 The Domestic Slave Trade in America 23 The Economics of Enslavement 24–25 MONTGOMERY SLAVE TRADE 31 Montgomery’s Particularly Brutal Slave Trading Practices 38 Kidnapping and Enslavement of Free African Americans 39 Separation of Families 40 Separated by Slavery: The Trauma of Losing Family 42–43 Exploitative Local Slave Trading Practices 44 “To Be Sold At Auction” 44–45 Sexual Exploitation of Enslaved People 46 Resistance through Revolt, Escape, and Survival 48–49 5 THE POST SLAVERY EXPERIENCE 50 The Abolitionist Movement 52–53 After Slavery: Post-Emancipation in Alabama 55 1901 Alabama Constitution 57 Reconstruction and Beyond in Montgomery 60 Post-War Throughout the South: Racism Through Politics and Violence 64 A NATIONAL LEGACY: 67 OUR COLLECTIVE MEMORY OF SLAVERY, WAR, AND RACE Reviving the Confederacy in Alabama and Beyond 70 CONCLUSION 76 Notes 80 Acknowledgments 87 6 INTRODUCTION Beginning in the sixteenth century, millions of African people The Montgomery Trade Slave were kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas under horrific conditions that frequently resulted in starvation and death.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to the Captured German Records at the National Archives
    THE KNOW YOUR RECORDS PROGRAM consists of free events with up-to-date information about our holdings. Events offer opportunities for you to learn about the National Archives’ records through ongoing lectures, monthly genealogy programs, and the annual genealogy fair. Additional resources include online reference reports for genealogical research, and the newsletter Researcher News. www.archives.gov/calendar/know-your-records The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the nation's record keeper. Of all the documents and materials created in the course of business conducted by the United States Federal government, only 1%–3% are determined permanently valuable. Those valuable records are preserved and are available to you, whether you want to see if they contain clues about your family’s history, need to prove a veteran’s military service, or are researching an historical topic that interests you. www.archives.gov/calendar/know-your-records December 14, 2016 Rachael Salyer Rachael Salyer, archivist, discusses records from Record Group 242, the National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, and offers strategies for starting your historical or genealogical research using the Captured German Records. www.archives.gov/calendar/know-your-records Rachael is currently an archivist in the Textual Processing unit at the National Archives in College Park, MD. In addition, she assists the Reference unit respond to inquiries about World War II and Captured German records. Her career with us started in the Textual Research Room. Before coming to the National Archives, Rachael worked primarily as a professor of German at Clark University in Worcester, MA and a professor of English at American International College in Springfield, MA.
    [Show full text]
  • A History of Slavery in Virginia
    The Basic Afro-American Reprint Library IMKIllfN LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA^/ A HISTORY OF SLAVERY IN VIRGINIA BY JAMES CURTIS BALLAGH Associate in History, Johns Hopkins University BALTIMORE THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS 1902 JOHNSON REPRINT CORPORATION JOHNSON REPRINT COMPANY LTD. 1 1 1 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003 Berkeley Square House, London, W. 1 #31 ]/, J y THE BASIC AFRO-AMERICAN REPRINT LIBRARY Books on the history, culture, and social environment of Afro-Americans Selected by Clarence L. Holte COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS. First reprinting, 1968, Johnson Reprint Corporation Printed in the United States of America //* TO THE MEMORY OF MY AUNTS SUSAN CATHERINE WITHROW AND PHOEBE CAROLINE PATTERSON CONTENTS. PAGE PREFACE vii CHAPTER I. SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVE POPULATION. - Slavery as a Stage in Social Progress 1 Origin and Progress of the Modern Slave Trade 3 Importation of the Subjects of Slavery 6 Restrictive Duties and Petitions to the Crown 11 Prohibition Attempted and Realized 19 -Slave Population and the Domestic Slave Trade 24 CHAPTER II. DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVERY. Legal Status of the Slave. Origin of Status , 27 Status of the Early Negroes and Indians 28 Relation of Servitude to Slavery 31 Subjects and Principles of Enslavement 45 Mulattoes, Mestizos and Persons of Color 56 Incidents of Slavery; Rights and Duties , 62 Penal Legislation concerning Slaves 82 Social Status of the Slave. Regulation by Custom 96 Personality of the Slave and Customary Rights 97 Maintenance, Guardianship, Education and Liberty 102 Negro Preachers 110 CHAPTER III. MANUMISSION, EMANCIPATION AND THE FREE MAN. Withdrawal of Restrictions to Liberty 116 Public and Private Manumission 119 Suits for Freedom 123 - Transportation of Freedmen 125 Anti-Slavery Sentiment 127 Plans for Emancipation < 130 Slavery Polemics and Apologetics 142 Status of the Free Negro 145 BIBLIOGRAPHY 149 V PREFACE.
    [Show full text]
  • The Woman-Slave Analogy: Rhetorical Foundations in American
    The Woman-Slave Analogy: Rhetorical Foundations in American Culture, 1830-1900 Ana Lucette Stevenson BComm (dist.), BA (HonsI) A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2014 School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics I Abstract During the 1830s, Sarah Grimké, the abolitionist and women’s rights reformer from South Carolina, stated: “It was when my soul was deeply moved at the wrongs of the slave that I first perceived distinctly the subject condition of women.” This rhetorical comparison between women and slaves – the woman-slave analogy – emerged in Europe during the seventeenth century, but gained peculiar significance in the United States during the nineteenth century. This rhetoric was inspired by the Revolutionary Era language of liberty versus tyranny, and discourses of slavery gained prominence in the reform culture that was dominated by the American antislavery movement and shared among the sisterhood of reforms. The woman-slave analogy functioned on the idea that the position of women was no better – nor any freer – than slaves. It was used to critique the exclusion of women from a national body politic based on the concept that “all men are created equal.” From the 1830s onwards, this analogy came to permeate the rhetorical practices of social reformers, especially those involved in the antislavery, women’s rights, dress reform, suffrage and labour movements. Sarah’s sister, Angelina, asked: “Can you not see that women could do, and would do a hundred times more for the slave if she were not fettered?” My thesis explores manifestations of the woman-slave analogy through the themes of marriage, fashion, politics, labour, and sex.
    [Show full text]
  • Howard J. Garber Letter Collection This Collection Was the Gift of Howard J
    Howard J. Garber Letter Collection This collection was the gift of Howard J. Garber to Case Western Reserve University from 1979 to 1993. Dr. Howard Garber, who donated the materials in the Howard J. Garber Manuscript Collection, is a former Clevelander and alumnus of Case Western Reserve University. Between 1979 and 1993, Dr. Garber donated over 2,000 autograph letters, documents and books to the Department of Special Collections. Dr. Garber's interest in history, particularly British royalty led to his affinity for collecting manuscripts. The collection focuses primarily on political, historical and literary figures in Great Britain and includes signatures of all the Prime Ministers and First Lords of the Treasury. Many interesting items can be found in the collection, including letters from Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning Thomas Hardy, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, King George III, and Virginia Woolf. Descriptions of the Garber Collection books containing autographs and tipped-in letters can be found in the online catalog. Box 1 [oversize location noted in description] Abbott, Charles (1762-1832) English Jurist. • ALS, 1 p., n.d., n.p., to ? A'Beckett, Gilbert A. (1811-1856) Comic Writer. • ALS, 3p., April 7, 1848, Mount Temple, to Morris Barnett. Abercrombie, Lascelles. (1881-1938) Poet and Literary Critic. • A.L.S., 1 p., March 5, n.y., Sheffield, to M----? & Hughes. Aberdeen, George Hamilton Gordon (1784-1860) British Prime Minister. • ALS, 1 p., June 8, 1827, n.p., to Augustous John Fischer. • ANS, 1 p., August 9, 1839, n.p., to Mr. Wright. • ALS, 1 p., January 10, 1853, London, to Cosmos Innes.
    [Show full text]
  • The Crimean Tatars and Their Russian-Captive Slaves an Aspect of Muscovite-Crimean Relations in the 16Th and 17Th Centuries
    The Crimean Tatars and their Russian-Captive Slaves An Aspect of Muscovite-Crimean Relations in the 16th and 17th Centuries Eizo MATSUKI The Law Code of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich (Ulozhenie), being formed of 25 chapters and divided into 976 articles, is the last and the most systematic codification of Muscovite Law in early modern Russia. It was compiled in 1649, that is more than one and a half centuries after Russia’s political “Independence” from Mongol-Tatar Rule. Chapter VIII of this Law Code, comprised of 7 articles and titled “The Redemption of Military Captives”, however, reveals that Muscovite Russia at the mid-17th century was yet suffering from frequent Tatar raids into its populated territory. The raids were to capture Russian people and sell them as slaves. Because of this situation, the Muscovite government was forced to create a special annual tax (poronianichnyi zbor) to prepare a financial fund needed for ransoming Russian captive-slaves from the Tatars.1 Chapter VIII, article 1 imposes an annual levy on the common people of all Russia: 8 dengi per household for town people as well as church peasants; 4 dengi for other peasants; and 2 dengi for lower service men. On the other hand, articles 2-7 of this chapter established norms for ransom-payment to the Tatars according to the rank of the Russian captives: for gentry (dvoriane) and lesser gentry (deti boiarskie) twenty rubles per 100 chetvert’ of their service land-estate (pomest’e); for lesser ranks such as Musketeers (strel’tsy),2 Cossacks, townspeople, and peasants a fixed payment from ten to forty rubles each.
    [Show full text]
  • Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court Of
    This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com AT 15' Fl LEMUEL SHAW I EMUEL SHAW CHIFF jl STIC h OF THE SUPREME Jli>I«'RL <.OlRT OF MAS Wlf .SfcTTb i a 30- 1 {'('• o BY FREDERIC HATHAWAY tHASH BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1 9 1 8 LEMUEL SHAW CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS 1830-1860 BY FREDERIC HATHAWAY CHASE BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (Sbe Slibttfibe $rrtf Cambribgc 1918 COPYRIGHT, I9lS, BY FREDERIC HATHAWAY CHASE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published March iqiS 279304 PREFACE It is doubtful if the country has ever seen a more brilliant group of lawyers than was found in Boston during the first half of the last century. None but a man of grand proportions could have emerged into prominence to stand with them. Webster, Choate, Story, Benjamin R. Curtis, Jeremiah Mason, the Hoars, Dana, Otis, and Caleb Cushing were among them. Of the lives and careers of all of these, full and adequate records have been written. But of him who was first their associate, and later their judge, the greatest legal figure of them all, only meagre accounts survive. It is in the hope of sup plying this deficiency, to some extent, that the following pages are presented. It may be thought that too great space has been given to a description of Shaw's forbears and early surroundings; but it is suggested that much in his character and later life is thus explained.
    [Show full text]
  • Slavery and the Underground Railroad at the Eppes Plantations, Petersburg National Battlefield Cover: Appomattox Manor at City Point, Virginia
    National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior Petersburg National Battlefield Petersburg, Virginia Slavery and the Underground Railroad at the Eppes Plantations, Petersburg National Battlefield Cover: Appomattox Manor at City Point, Virginia. Photo courtesy National Park Service. SLAVERY AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD At the Eppes Plantations Petersburg National Battlefield Special History Study by Marie Tyler-McGraw Prepared for Organization of American Historians Under cooperative agreement with Northeast Region National Park Service U. S. Department of the Interior Printed December 2005 Contents Acknowledgements 10 Executive Summary Research Methods and Summary of Findings 11 Chapter 1 Frontiers and Boundaries (1640s – 1765) 15 Landscape and settlement on the James River and Appomattox colonial frontier. Origins of slavery and early resistance Chapter 2 Revolutions (1765 – 1816) 20 Revolutions in Agricultural Production, Government, Religious Practice and Belief in Eastern Virginia Escape to the British and service in the Continental Armies during the Revolution Slavery in early Federal Virginia Chapter 3 The Great Divide (1816 – 1844) 26 East Virginia slavery, fugitives and free blacks in the national political divisions over slavery Chapter 4 Calculating the Costs (1848 – 1862) 31 Leaving and staying in the age of sectional hostility Shrinking distances and a nearby Underground Railroad Daily life on the late antebellum Eppes plantations Chapter 5 Contraband: Escape During the Civil War (1861 – 1867) 42 Escape and return in the Civil War era Chapter 6 The Underground Railroad in Petersburg 46 In the region of the Eppes plantations Footnotes 57 Appendices I. Richard Eppes’s Code of Laws for the Island Plantation 66 II. Enslaved Families on the Eppes Plantations 70 III.
    [Show full text]
  • The Causes of the Civil War
    THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR: A NEWSPAPER ANALYSIS by DIANNE M. BRAGG WM. DAVID SLOAN, COMMITTEE CHAIR GEORGE RABLE MEG LAMME KARLA K. GOWER CHRIS ROBERTS A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Communication and Information Sciences in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2013 Copyright Dianne Marie Bragg 2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT This dissertation examines antebellum newspaper content in an attempt to add to the historical understanding of the causes of the Civil War. Numerous historians have studied the Civil War and its causes, but this study will use only newspapers to examine what they can show about the causes that eventually led the country to war. Newspapers have long chronicled events in American history, and they offer valuable information about the issues and concerns of their communities. This study begins with an overview of the newspaper coverage of the tariff and territorial issues that began to divide the country in the early decades of the 1800s. The study then moves from the Wilmot Proviso in 1846 to Lincoln’s election in 1860, a period in which sectionalism and disunion increasingly appeared on newspaper pages and the lines of disagreement between the North and the South hardened. The primary sources used in this study were a diverse sampling of articles from newspapers around the country and includes representation from both southern and northern newspapers. Studying these antebellum newspapers offers insight into the political, social, and economic concerns of the day, which can give an indication of how the sectional differences in these areas became so divisive.
    [Show full text]
  • Download File
    Spectatrices: Moviegoing and Women’s Writing, 1925-1945 Nolan Gear Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under the Executive Committee of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2021 © 2021 Nolan Gear All Rights Reserved Abstract Spectatrices: Moviegoing and Women’s Writing, 1925-1945 Nolan Gear How did cinema influence the many writers who also constituted the first generation of moviegoers? In Spectatrices, I argue that early moviegoing was a rich imaginative reservoir for anglophone writers on both sides of the Atlantic. Coming to cinema from the vantage of the audience, I suggest that women of the 1920s found in moviegoing a practice of experimentation, aesthetic inquiry, and social critique. My project is focused on women writers not only as a means of reclaiming the femininized passivity of the audience, but because moviegoing offered novel opportunities for women to gather publicly. It was, for this reason, a profoundly political endeavor in the first decades of the 20th century. At the movies, writers such as Jessie Redmon Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, H.D., Dorothy Richardson, and Virginia Woolf developed concepts of temporary community, alternative desire, and discontinuous form that they then incorporated into their literary practice. Where most scholarship assessing cinema’s influence on literature is governed by the medium-specificity of film, my project emphasizes the public dimension of the movies, the fleeting and semi-anonymous intimacy of the moviegoing audience. In turning to moviegoing, Spectatrices opens new methods of comparison and cross-canonical reorganization, focusing on the weak social ties typified by moviegoing audiences, the libidinal permissiveness of fantasy and diva-worship, the worshipful rhetoric by which some writers transformed the theater into a church, and most significantly, the creation of new public formations for women across different axes of class, gender, and race.
    [Show full text]
  • Articles  195
    ARTICLES 195 HOW A CALIFORNIA SETTLER UNSETTLED THE PROSLAVERY LEGISLATURE OF ANTEBELLUM LOUISIANA ALEXANDRA HAVRYLYSHYN* Introduction lavery in the antebellum American South depended upon a set of laws designed Sto enslave and exploit individuals on the basis of their race, while protecting the owners of human property. A long line of literature has established this.1 One might expect that those at the bottom of the hierarchy — enslaved women and girls of African descent — would have no hope of contesting their status. R ecent literature demonstrates that there were in fact legal pathways to freedom.2 Thispaper was awarded first place in the California Supreme Court Historical So- ciety’s 2018 CSCHS Selma Moidel Smith Student Writing Competition in California Legal History. * JD, PhD, 2018, University of California Berkeley School of Law. 1 Derrick Bell, Race, Racism, and American Law (New York: Aspen Publishers, 2004); Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974); Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966); Thomas Morris,Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619–1860 (Cha- pel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1996); Kenneth Stampp, The Peculiar Institu- tion: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (New York: Vintage Books, 1989). 2 Rosemary Brana-Shute and Randy Sparks, Paths to Freedom: Manumission in the Atlantic World (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009); Alejandro de 196 CALIFORNIA LEGAL HISTORY ✯ VOLUME 14, 2019 This article uncovers the little-known history of Judge John McHenry, a trial judge at the First District Court of New Orleans.
    [Show full text]
  • Is the Sunshine Chilly
    South Carolina Law Review Volume 55 Issue 4 SYMPOSIUM: COURT-ENFORCED Article 10 SECRECY Summer 2004 Settlements and Secrets: Is the Sunshine Chilly James E. Rooks Jr. Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/sclr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Rooks, James E. Jr. (2004) "Settlements and Secrets: Is the Sunshine Chilly," South Carolina Law Review: Vol. 55 : Iss. 4 , Article 10. Available at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/sclr/vol55/iss4/10 This Symposium Paper is brought to you by the Law Reviews and Journals at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in South Carolina Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Rooks: Settlements and Secrets: Is the Sunshine Chilly SETTLEMENTS AND SECRETS: Is THE SUNSHINE CHILLY? JAMES E. ROOKS JR." I. OPEN COURTS, CLOSED FILES ................................. 859 II. JUDICIAL AND LEGISLATIVE EFFORTS TO DEAL WITH OVERUSE AND ABUSE OF SECRECY ........................ 861 III. THE "CHILLED SETTLEMENTS" ARGUMENT ....................... 863 IV. FEDERAL JUDGES CONFRONT SECRET SETTLEMENTS ............... 865 V. DOES SECRECY PROMOTE SETrLEMENT? DOES SUNSHINE "CHILL" SETrLEMENTS? ... ....... ...... ...... ....... 870 VI. WHERE ARE THE CHILLED SETTLEMENTS? ...... ....... ....... 872 VII. FROM SPECULATION TO SOPHISTRY .............................. 874 I. OPEN COURTS, CLOSED FILES American lawyers recognize that the openness of the courts, and the public nature of their proceedings and records, are hallmarks of our system ofjustice. Yet few lawyers who represent consumers in United States courts can be unaware of the national public policy debate on the frequent use and abuse of secrecy in our civil justice system. "Secrecy," in this debate, refers collectively to a number of legal mechanisms that may be used to conceal litigation information from the public, from government regulators, from attorneys handling similar cases, and in some cases even from other courts.
    [Show full text]