A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction

A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction

Author: Laura F. Edwards

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-01-26

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1316239713

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Although hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the American Civil War, perhaps the war's biggest casualty was the nation's legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering Americans' relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated.


Book Synopsis A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction by : Laura F. Edwards

Download or read book A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction written by Laura F. Edwards and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the American Civil War, perhaps the war's biggest casualty was the nation's legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering Americans' relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated.


Changes in Law and Society during the Civil War and Reconstruction

Changes in Law and Society during the Civil War and Reconstruction

Author: Christian G. Samito

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2009-06-22

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780809328895

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The first comprehensive collection of legal history documents from the Civil War and Reconstruction, this volume shows the profound legal changes that occurred during the Civil War era and highlights how law, society, and politics inextricably mixed and set American legal development on particular paths that were not predetermined. Editor Christian G. Samito has carefully selected excerpts from legislation, public and legislative debates, court cases, investigations of white supremacist violence in the South, and rare court-martial records, added his expert analysis, and illustrated the selections with telling period artwork to create an outstanding resource that demonstrates the rich and important legal history of the era.


Book Synopsis Changes in Law and Society during the Civil War and Reconstruction by : Christian G. Samito

Download or read book Changes in Law and Society during the Civil War and Reconstruction written by Christian G. Samito and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2009-06-22 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive collection of legal history documents from the Civil War and Reconstruction, this volume shows the profound legal changes that occurred during the Civil War era and highlights how law, society, and politics inextricably mixed and set American legal development on particular paths that were not predetermined. Editor Christian G. Samito has carefully selected excerpts from legislation, public and legislative debates, court cases, investigations of white supremacist violence in the South, and rare court-martial records, added his expert analysis, and illustrated the selections with telling period artwork to create an outstanding resource that demonstrates the rich and important legal history of the era.


The Reconstruction of Southern Debtors

The Reconstruction of Southern Debtors

Author: Elizabeth Lee Thompson

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780820326245

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Based on a careful empirical study of nearly four thousand cases filed in three southern federal districts, this book focuses on how the Bankruptcy Act of 1867 helped shape the course and outcome of Reconstruction. Although passed by a Republican-dominated Congress that was commonly viewed as punitive toward the post-Civil War South, the Bankruptcy Act was a great benefit to southerners. In this first study of the operation of the 1867 Act, Elizabeth Lee Thompson challenges previous works, which maintain that nineteenth-century southerners uniformly opposed federal bankruptcy laws as threatening extensions of federal power. To the contrary, Thompson finds that southerners, faced with the war’s devastation, were more likely to file for bankruptcy than debtors in other parts of the country. The Act thus was the major piece of federal economic legislation that benefited southerners during Reconstruction. Thompson determines that because the vast majority of the Bankruptcy Act’s southern beneficiaries were propertied white men, the legislation served to stabilize and entrench the postwar economic--and thus social and political--power of the sector that included those who were recently leading secessionists and Confederates. Their participation in a federal process, through federal tribunals, during an era of intense white southern opposition to policies emanating from Washington reveals the complex interaction of states' rights ideology and self-interest. However, Thompson shows, white southerners ultimately sacrificed neither in relation to the Bankruptcy Act. After thousands had received economic relief through the statute and the number of filings had slowed to a trickle, southern congressmen supported the Act’s repeal in 1878.


Book Synopsis The Reconstruction of Southern Debtors by : Elizabeth Lee Thompson

Download or read book The Reconstruction of Southern Debtors written by Elizabeth Lee Thompson and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a careful empirical study of nearly four thousand cases filed in three southern federal districts, this book focuses on how the Bankruptcy Act of 1867 helped shape the course and outcome of Reconstruction. Although passed by a Republican-dominated Congress that was commonly viewed as punitive toward the post-Civil War South, the Bankruptcy Act was a great benefit to southerners. In this first study of the operation of the 1867 Act, Elizabeth Lee Thompson challenges previous works, which maintain that nineteenth-century southerners uniformly opposed federal bankruptcy laws as threatening extensions of federal power. To the contrary, Thompson finds that southerners, faced with the war’s devastation, were more likely to file for bankruptcy than debtors in other parts of the country. The Act thus was the major piece of federal economic legislation that benefited southerners during Reconstruction. Thompson determines that because the vast majority of the Bankruptcy Act’s southern beneficiaries were propertied white men, the legislation served to stabilize and entrench the postwar economic--and thus social and political--power of the sector that included those who were recently leading secessionists and Confederates. Their participation in a federal process, through federal tribunals, during an era of intense white southern opposition to policies emanating from Washington reveals the complex interaction of states' rights ideology and self-interest. However, Thompson shows, white southerners ultimately sacrificed neither in relation to the Bankruptcy Act. After thousands had received economic relief through the statute and the number of filings had slowed to a trickle, southern congressmen supported the Act’s repeal in 1878.


The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory

The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory

Author: Bradley R. Clampitt

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2015-09-23

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 080327887X

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In Indian Territory the Civil War is a story best told through shades of gray rather than black and white or heroes and villains. Since neutrality appeared virtually impossible, the vast majority of territory residents chose a side, doing so for myriad reasons and not necessarily out of affection for either the Union or the Confederacy. Indigenous residents found themselves fighting to protect their unusual dual status as communities distinct from the American citizenry yet legal wards of the federal government. The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory is a nuanced and authoritative examination of the layers of conflicts both on and off the Civil War battlefield. It examines the military front and the home front; the experiences of the Five Nations and those of the agency tribes in the western portion of the territory; the severe conflicts between Native Americans and the federal government and between Indian nations and their former slaves during and beyond the Reconstruction years; and the concept of memory as viewed through the lenses of Native American oral traditions and the modern evolution of public history. These carefully crafted essays by leading scholars such as Amanda Cobb-Greetham, Clarissa Confer, Richard B. McCaslin, Linda W. Reese, and F. Todd Smith will help teachers and students better understand the Civil War, Native American history, and Oklahoma history.


Book Synopsis The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory by : Bradley R. Clampitt

Download or read book The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory written by Bradley R. Clampitt and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2015-09-23 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Indian Territory the Civil War is a story best told through shades of gray rather than black and white or heroes and villains. Since neutrality appeared virtually impossible, the vast majority of territory residents chose a side, doing so for myriad reasons and not necessarily out of affection for either the Union or the Confederacy. Indigenous residents found themselves fighting to protect their unusual dual status as communities distinct from the American citizenry yet legal wards of the federal government. The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory is a nuanced and authoritative examination of the layers of conflicts both on and off the Civil War battlefield. It examines the military front and the home front; the experiences of the Five Nations and those of the agency tribes in the western portion of the territory; the severe conflicts between Native Americans and the federal government and between Indian nations and their former slaves during and beyond the Reconstruction years; and the concept of memory as viewed through the lenses of Native American oral traditions and the modern evolution of public history. These carefully crafted essays by leading scholars such as Amanda Cobb-Greetham, Clarissa Confer, Richard B. McCaslin, Linda W. Reese, and F. Todd Smith will help teachers and students better understand the Civil War, Native American history, and Oklahoma history.


The Civil War and Reconstruction

The Civil War and Reconstruction

Author: Stanley Harrold

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2007-11-28

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1405156643

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This new volume deals with two momentous and interrelated events in American history —the American Civil War and Reconstruction—and offers students a collection of essential documentary sources for these periods. Provides students with over 60 documents on the American Civil War and Reconstruction Includes presidential addresses, official reports, songs, poems, and a variety of eyewitness testimony concerning significant events ranging from 1833-1879 Contains an informative introduction focused on the kinds of materials available and how historians use them Each chapter ends with questions designed to help students engage with the material and to highlight key issues of historical debate


Book Synopsis The Civil War and Reconstruction by : Stanley Harrold

Download or read book The Civil War and Reconstruction written by Stanley Harrold and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-11-28 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new volume deals with two momentous and interrelated events in American history —the American Civil War and Reconstruction—and offers students a collection of essential documentary sources for these periods. Provides students with over 60 documents on the American Civil War and Reconstruction Includes presidential addresses, official reports, songs, poems, and a variety of eyewitness testimony concerning significant events ranging from 1833-1879 Contains an informative introduction focused on the kinds of materials available and how historians use them Each chapter ends with questions designed to help students engage with the material and to highlight key issues of historical debate


Reconstructing Reconstruction

Reconstructing Reconstruction

Author: Pamela Brandwein

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780822323167

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Looks at the contest to construct history, focusing on competing versions of Reconstruction history supported by different factions after the Civil War. The author analyzes how the ultimately dominant version of the history won credence and how that in


Book Synopsis Reconstructing Reconstruction by : Pamela Brandwein

Download or read book Reconstructing Reconstruction written by Pamela Brandwein and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at the contest to construct history, focusing on competing versions of Reconstruction history supported by different factions after the Civil War. The author analyzes how the ultimately dominant version of the history won credence and how that in


The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

Author: Eric Foner

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2019-09-17

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0393652580

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From the Pulitzer Prize–winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation’s foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time. The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States. Eric Foner’s compact, insightful history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre–Civil War mass meetings of African-American “colored citizens” and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century. A series of momentous decisions by the Supreme Court narrowed the rights guaranteed in the amendments, while the states actively undermined them. The Jim Crow system was the result. Again today there are serious political challenges to birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection of the law. Like all great works of history, this one informs our understanding of the present as well as the past: knowledge and vigilance are always necessary to secure our basic rights.


Book Synopsis The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution by : Eric Foner

Download or read book The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution written by Eric Foner and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning scholar, a timely history of the constitutional changes that built equality into the nation’s foundation and how those guarantees have been shaken over time. The Declaration of Independence announced equality as an American ideal, but it took the Civil War and the subsequent adoption of three constitutional amendments to establish that ideal as American law. The Reconstruction amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed all persons due process and equal protection of the law, and equipped black men with the right to vote. They established the principle of birthright citizenship and guaranteed the privileges and immunities of all citizens. The federal government, not the states, was charged with enforcement, reversing the priority of the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In grafting the principle of equality onto the Constitution, these revolutionary changes marked the second founding of the United States. Eric Foner’s compact, insightful history traces the arc of these pivotal amendments from their dramatic origins in pre–Civil War mass meetings of African-American “colored citizens” and in Republican party politics to their virtual nullification in the late nineteenth century. A series of momentous decisions by the Supreme Court narrowed the rights guaranteed in the amendments, while the states actively undermined them. The Jim Crow system was the result. Again today there are serious political challenges to birthright citizenship, voting rights, due process, and equal protection of the law. Like all great works of history, this one informs our understanding of the present as well as the past: knowledge and vigilance are always necessary to secure our basic rights.


Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction

Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction

Author: William L. Richter

Publisher: Scarecrow Press

Published: 2011-12-01

Total Pages: 1033

ISBN-13: 081087959X

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The importance of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the history of the United States cannot be overstated. Many historians regard the Civil War as the defining event in American history. At stake was not only freedom for 3.5 million slaves but also survival of the relatively new American experiment in self-government. A very real possibility existed that the union could have been severed, but a collection of determined leaders and soldiers proved their willingness to fight for the survival of what Abraham Lincoln called "the last best hope on earth." The second edition of this highly readable, one-volume Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction looks to place the war in its historical context. The more than 800 entries, encompassing the years 1844-1877, cover the significant events, persons, politics, and economic and social themes of the Civil War and Reconstruction. An extensive chronology, introductory essay, and comprehensive bibliography supplement the cross-referenced dictionary entries to guide the reader through the military and non-military actions of one of the most pivotal events in American history. The dictionary concludes with a selection of primary documents. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Civil War and Reconstruction.


Book Synopsis Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction by : William L. Richter

Download or read book Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction written by William L. Richter and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 1033 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of the Civil War and Reconstruction in the history of the United States cannot be overstated. Many historians regard the Civil War as the defining event in American history. At stake was not only freedom for 3.5 million slaves but also survival of the relatively new American experiment in self-government. A very real possibility existed that the union could have been severed, but a collection of determined leaders and soldiers proved their willingness to fight for the survival of what Abraham Lincoln called "the last best hope on earth." The second edition of this highly readable, one-volume Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction looks to place the war in its historical context. The more than 800 entries, encompassing the years 1844-1877, cover the significant events, persons, politics, and economic and social themes of the Civil War and Reconstruction. An extensive chronology, introductory essay, and comprehensive bibliography supplement the cross-referenced dictionary entries to guide the reader through the military and non-military actions of one of the most pivotal events in American history. The dictionary concludes with a selection of primary documents. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Civil War and Reconstruction.


A New Birth of Freedom

A New Birth of Freedom

Author: W. Thomas Minahan

Publisher: Archway Publishing

Published: 2017-12-14

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1480854247

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The American Civil War (1861-1865), was the most traumatic event in this countrys history. To win the war, the Northern states ceded enormous power to the federal government. However, the paradigm shift in federal-state relations occurred during the Reconstruction Era of 1863 to 1877. A New Birth of Freedom, by author W. Thomas Minahan, examines that paradigm shift that occurred in Ohio during this time. The beginning chapters explore Ohios early political, social, and legal history and how the state grew to become a social microcosm of the entire country by 1860. The later chapters examine the changes to the political, social, and legal climate in the country, and particularly in the Buckeye State, during the 1860s and 1870s. Offering a comprehensive discussion of the effects of the Civil War and reconstruction on the development of Ohio state law, A New Birth of Freedom provides both historical detail on the antecedents to the law as well as an analysis of how federal and state constitutions evolved through the turn of the nineteenth century. It discusses the central role Ohio and Ohioans played in securing the future of the United States.


Book Synopsis A New Birth of Freedom by : W. Thomas Minahan

Download or read book A New Birth of Freedom written by W. Thomas Minahan and published by Archway Publishing. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American Civil War (1861-1865), was the most traumatic event in this countrys history. To win the war, the Northern states ceded enormous power to the federal government. However, the paradigm shift in federal-state relations occurred during the Reconstruction Era of 1863 to 1877. A New Birth of Freedom, by author W. Thomas Minahan, examines that paradigm shift that occurred in Ohio during this time. The beginning chapters explore Ohios early political, social, and legal history and how the state grew to become a social microcosm of the entire country by 1860. The later chapters examine the changes to the political, social, and legal climate in the country, and particularly in the Buckeye State, during the 1860s and 1870s. Offering a comprehensive discussion of the effects of the Civil War and reconstruction on the development of Ohio state law, A New Birth of Freedom provides both historical detail on the antecedents to the law as well as an analysis of how federal and state constitutions evolved through the turn of the nineteenth century. It discusses the central role Ohio and Ohioans played in securing the future of the United States.


Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics

Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics

Author: William Archibald Dunning

Publisher:

Published: 1897

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13:

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Book Synopsis Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics by : William Archibald Dunning

Download or read book Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction and Related Topics written by William Archibald Dunning and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: