Last week, when I posted a link to my new article, Whence Comes Section One? The Abolitionist Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment, I received several messages telling me that SSRN was inaccessible. Presumably, it is working now, so if you were unable to download it, you should try again. Here is the link, and here […]
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Happy Birthday Lysander Spooner!
Today is Lysander Spooner’s birthday. Born in 1808, Spooner was a lawyer, abolitionist, entrepreneur, prolific writer and eventually an individualist anarchist. Political science professor and Spooner scholar Helen Knowles offers her birthday tribute on her new blog, Irresistible Clearness, which is named after a passage from United States v. Fisher by Chief Justice John Marshall […]
A 1788 Dublin Edition of Pleas of the Crown — And A Possible Supreme Court Connection
I recently purchased a copy of Volume I of the early criminal law treatise, William Hawkins, A Treatise of Pleas of the Crown; or, a system of the principal matters relating to that subject, digested under proper heads. At common law, non-misdemeanor English crimes were the causes of action brought in the King’s court — […]
U.S. Supreme Court Correspondence From March 6, 1865
A few months ago I bought an interesting 1865 letter on U.S. Supreme Court stationery: Here is what it says, as best I can tell: OFFICE SUPREME COURT U.S. Washington City Mar 6th 1865 Curtis & Scribner, Esqs Gentlemen, Your favor of the 25th ult, is received. The case of Sam R. Curtis et. al., […]