Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 91–120 of 302 results. Go to first page
Massachusetts State House

Civil Rights Without the Supreme Court

Losing the support of the Supreme Court is disappointing, but it need not be the death knell of progress.

Arthur Mervin, Bankrupt

An 18th-century novel explores how American society handles capitalism's collateral damage — and who deserves a second chance.

What America Taught the Nazis

In the 1930s, the Germans were fascinated by the global leader in legal racism—the United States.
Lithograph book illustration of pirates of America.

A Treasure Trove of Trials

This collection of piracy trials comprises documents that were published before 1923 and that are part of the holdings of the Law Library of Congress.

Laundered Violence

Law and protest in Durham, North Carolina.

What the Nazis Learned from America

Rigid racial codes in the early 20th century gained the admiration not only of many American elites, but also of Nazi Germany.

Constitutional Originalism and History

Does the most historically minded school of constitutional law push history aside?
Two members of a teenage street gang are taken into the 9th Precinct police station after their arrest in New York City.

The Forgotten Law That Gave Police Nearly Unlimited Power

The vagrancy law regime regulated so much more than what is generally considered “vagrancy.”

The Awakening of Thurgood Marshall

The case he didn’t expect to lose. And why it mattered that he did.

Objection

Clarence Darrow’s unfinished work.

Dead or Alive: Originalism as Popular Constitutionalism in Heller

Was the 2008 Heller decision a victory for originalism or a living Constitution?
View of Boston in 1730.

Civil Unions in the City on a Hill: The Real Legacy of "Boston Judges"

For the English Puritans who founded Massachusetts in 1630, marriage was a civil union, a contract, not a sacred rite.
National Civil Rights Museum recreation of King's Birmingham jail cell.

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 letter written from prison remains one of his most famous works.
Image of the Preamble: We The People

On Originalism in Constitutional Interpretation

People continue to interpret the U.S. Constitution in different ways. One way is an originalist framework that favors the Founding Father's intent in 1787.
A hand holds a US flag and a pride flag in front of the Supreme Court building in a crowd celebrating the Obergefell v. Hodges decision.
partner

How the Supreme Court Ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges Legalized Same-Sex Marriage

When Jim Obergefell and his partner John Arthur decided to marry after more than 20 years together, their home state refused to recognize same-sex marriages.
Graphic of a nickel displays the words "nullification," "compact," and "sever" on Jefferson's head.

Thomas Jefferson Would Like A Word With You

Thomas Jefferson's limited government ideal quickly conflicted with the U.S. Constitution and the dominant Federalist Party, prompting a radical proposal.
partner

Not Just the Dog-Eared Pages

Considering a novel as a whole, rather than as the sum of its parts, was an approach favored by mid-20th-century literary critics. It was also useful for fighting book bans.
Broadside about the Fugitive Slave law.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: Annotated

The Fugitive Slave Act erased the most basic of constitutional rights for enslaved people and incentivized US Commissioners to support kidnappers.
Alleged enemy aliens on way to detention camp, Gloucester, New Jersey, 1918.

The Alien Enemies Act: Annotated

Confused about the oft-mentioned Alien Enemies Act? This explainer, with links to free peer-reviewed scholarship, may help clear things up.
Clark Mills’s statue of Andrew Jackson, Lafayette Park, Washington D.C., circa 1910–1925

Vance’s Junk History

When Donald Trump and his followers go in search of historical forerunners to justify their regime, they turn with striking regularity to the presidency.
Drawing of the fight between two congressional representatives titled "Congressional pugilists," 1798.

Alien Enemies, Alien Friends, and the Concept of “Allegiance”

With controversy raging over the Alien Enemies Act, how should we understand the concept it invoked?
Civil rights lawyers including Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley.

Trump's Attack on Lawyers and Law Firms Takes a Page Out of the Southern 1950s Playbook

American authoritarians fear the uniquely American power of litigation.
James Madison behind a swirling pattern.

Musk’s Madisonian Insight—And Its Troubling Consequences

DOGE's seizure of government databases is not just an act of bureaucratic reorganization. It is an act of constitutional restructuring.
Poster reading "Basta Buitres," or "Enough Vultures," calling for Argentina to unite against the United States.

How the US Courts Rewrote the Rules of International Trade

How the American legal system created an economic environment that subordinated the entire world to domestic business interests.
Supreme court passing from the robing room to the court chambers, 1881.
partner

Lacking a Demonstrable Source of Authority

On the case that provoked the courts to decide if the federal government had jurisdiction to exercise American criminal law over Native peoples on Native lands.

I Pledge . . . Allegiance?

American law says schools must honor the Pledge of Allegiance. Schools may have other plans.
Collage of the American flag and the preamble to the Constitution.

The Historical Challenge to Originalism

Jonathan Gienapp's attack on originalism deserves a serious response.
Handcuff cuffed around wedding ring

“Marital Rape” Was Legal Longer Than You Think

In 1984, only 18 American states denied that wives were the sexual property of their husbands.

The Case Against New York Times v. Sullivan

The malice test is the result of judicial activism and should be rejected by a Court that understands its task as the discovery, not the invention of law.
Painting depicting the Salem Witch Trials.

Did the Witch Trials Ever Truly Come to an End?

Marion Gibson’s research rigorously traces the legal and human aspects of the trials through today.

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person