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Spectators and witnesses at the trial for a case involving an automobile accident, Oxford, North Carolina, 1939.

A ‘Wary Faith’ in the Courts

A groundbreaking new book demonstrates that even during the days of slavery, African Americans knew a lot more about legal principles than has been imagined.
by Eric Foner via New York Review of Books on March 14, 2024
Lithograph depicting Margert Garner standing over the body of her dead daughter, to the shock of slave catchers.
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Discarding Legal Precedent to Control Women's Reproductive Rights is Rooted in Colonial Slavery

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made reference to the legal opinions of English jurist Henry de Bracton, foreshadowing the court overturning Roe v. Wade.
by Clyde W. Ford via HNN on June 5, 2022

Inventing Freedom

Using manumission to disentangle blackness and enslavement in Cuba, Louisiana, and Virginia.
by Alejandro de la Fuente, Ariela Gross via Lapham’s Quarterly on January 21, 2020
Run on a bank during the Great Depression.

The Radical Past and Future of Debt Resistance

The deep roots of debt relief activism in the United States.
by Astra Taylor via The Nation on September 25, 2024
A judge's gavel and the Capitol building, edited to look like the top of the Capitol is the other side of the gavel.

America Has Too Many Laws

An excess of restrictions has taken a very real toll on the lives of everyday Americans. Their stories must be told.
by Neil Gorsuch, Janie Nitze via The Atlantic on August 5, 2024
Illustration of John Roberts, with face obscured by half of the presidential seal.

The Supreme Court Fools Itself

The Roberts Court has made the current crisis of American democracy perpetual.
by Adam Serwer via The Atlantic on July 24, 2024
A homeless man eating a meal in a park.

Good Deeds Unpunished

American law should protect the right of individuals to engage in charitable acts.
by Mark David Hall, Adam J. Macleod via Law & Liberty on July 22, 2024
Donald Trump walking onstage, next to four American flags.

‘The Dred Scott of Our Time’

The Supreme Court has invested the presidency with quasi-monarchial powers, repudiating the foundational principle of the rule of law.
by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on July 4, 2024
Chief Justice John Roberts at the State of the Union on March 7.

The Supreme Court Turns the President Into a King

The conservative justices have ignored history altogether and created a shocking new precedent: The president is above the law.
by Holly Brewer via The New Republic on July 1, 2024
"The President's House" (The White House), in the nineteenth century, print by Isidore Laurent Deroy after Augustus Kollner, 1848.

Can the Republic Survive Corrupt Presidents?

The Founders knew that executive power was vital but dangerous in any republic.
by Richard Samuelson via Law & Liberty on June 27, 2024
Scale with hundred-dollar bills weighing down one side.

Markets and the Law

Neoliberalism isn’t just a set of economic precepts—it’s also an architecture of laws passed to reinforce those precepts. Those laws must be changed.
by Amy Kapczynski via Democracy Journal on June 24, 2024
Sections of the US Constitution torn to be used as pennants.

Is the United States Too Devoted to the Constitution?

A new book argues that worship of the Constitution has distorted our politics.
by John Fabian Witt via The New Republic on June 24, 2024
President Bill Clinton with then-Sen. Biden on Sept. 13, 1994, during a signing ceremony for the crime bill on the South Lawn of the White House.

The Biggest Myth About the 1994 Crime Bill Still Haunts Joe Biden. It Shouldn’t.

The law is routinely blamed for a very real problem it had nothing to do with.
by John Pfaff via Slate on June 20, 2024
Aziz Rana.

Aziz Rana Wants Us to Stop Worshipping the Constitution

A conversation with the legal scholar on why it is unusual that the Constitution is core to American national identity.
by Aziz Rana, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on June 3, 2024
Collage of photographs of U.S. Border Patrol.

The Racist Origins of America’s Broken Immigration System

How a little-known, century-old law perpetuated the odious notion that certain types of immigrants degrade our nation’s character.
by Felipe De La Hoz via The New Republic on May 1, 2024
Side-by-side photographs of Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.

On Garrison, Douglass, and American Colonialism

Examining how William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass interpreted the nation's relationship with the Constitution.
by Maggie Blackhawk via LPE Project on April 22, 2024
Starbucks workers on strike.

The Paradox of the American Labor Movement

It’s a great time to be in a union—but a terrible time to try to start a new one.
by Michael Podhorzer via The Atlantic on April 18, 2024
Lincoln being sworn in by Chief Justice Taney.

We Are Already Defying the Supreme Court

The risks of calling on politicians to push back against the court must be weighed against the present reality of a malign judicial dictatorship.
by Samuel Moyn, Ryan D. Doerfler via Dissent on April 16, 2024
Nixon signing the 26th amendment.
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America’s Age-Based Laws Are Archaic

Our age-based laws have never made sense. With modern science, they make even less sense.
by Holly N. S. White via Made by History on February 28, 2024
The First Women’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, 1848.

What American Divorces Tell Us About American Marriages

On the inseparable histories of matrimony and disunion in the United States.
by Lyz Lenz via Literary Hub on February 22, 2024
Demonstrators show support for Palestine.

How the ADL’s Anti-Palestinian Advocacy Helped Shape U.S. Terror Laws

Long before 9/11, Zionist groups like the Anti-Defamation League lobbied for counterterror legislation that singled out Palestinians.
by Alice Speri via The Intercept on February 21, 2024
The State Capitol building in Richmond, Va.
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Debt Has Long Been a Tool for Limiting Black Freedom

In pre-Civil War Richmond, Black people were forced to literally pay for the mechanisms of white supremacy.
by Amanda White Gibson via Made by History on February 19, 2024
William Howard Taft, with the Supreme Court building under construction in the background.

The Architect of Our Divided Supreme Court

100 years ago, Chief Justice William Howard Taft made the Court more efficient and more powerful, marking a turning point whose effects are still being felt.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on January 22, 2024
A newspaper photograph of a man kneeling beside H. Lawrence Nelson's gravestone, which reads "Dec 16, 1880 - Sept 25, 1906, murdered and robbed by Hamp Kendall and John Vickers."

A Murderous Gravestone Grudge Carved a New Law Into Stone

When murder won’t rest in peace.
by Max Longley via Atlas Obscura on January 11, 2024
Capital Hill at night.
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Government Shutdowns Were Never Necessary Anyway

Government shutdowns only became possible in 1980, when the Attorney General offered a new interpretation of an 1870 law.
by M. A. Davis via Made by History on November 16, 2023
Civil Rights march for jobs and freedom.

The Hidden Story of Black History and Black Lives Before the Civil Rights Movement

On upending the accepted narrative of the movement.
by Dylan C. Penningroth via Literary Hub on October 4, 2023
A drawing of a woman looking inside the door of a church where children are playing.

The Quiet Revolution of the Sabbath

Requiring rest, rather than work, is still a radical idea.
by Casey N. Cep via The New Yorker on September 30, 2023
The "fangs" of private equity dripping blood on the U.S. economy.

Conspicuous Destruction

Two books argue that private equity created an economic order in which getting rich quickly preempts other values, undermining companies and evading the law.
by Kim Phillips-Fein via New York Review of Books on September 28, 2023
An illustration of Anthony Comstock, published in Puck magazine in 1906.

The 150-Year-Old Comstock Act Could Transform the Abortion Debate

Once considered a relic of moral panics past, the 1873 law criminalized sending "obscene, lewd or lascivious" materials through the mail.
by Ellen Wexler via Smithsonian on June 15, 2023
1825 painting of a white man kissing a Black woman, and a white man whipping a Black man.

Jefferson’s Secret Plan to Whiten Virginia

Jefferson’s system depended on shoring up the bulwarks of race and basing the law on a theory of government that withdrew protection from unfavored groups.
by Timothy Messer-Kruse via Commonplace on April 19, 2023
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