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Presenting a new framework for understanding the complex but vital relationship between legal history and the family, Michael Grossberg analyzes the formation of legal policies on such issues as common law marriage, adoption, and rights for illegitimate children.He shows how legal changes diminished male authority, increased women's and children's rights, and fixed more clearly the state's responsibilities in family affairs.Grossberg further illustrates why many basic principles of this distinctive and powerful new body of law—antiabortion and maternal biases in child custody—remained in effect well into the twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Dry but the general argument holds up
Any attempt to assemble a detailed picture of society must take into consideration the legal structures that function within that culture. A court system works in two ways: judges influence society through its rulings as often as society at large influences the judicial system. Michael Grossberg's "Governing the Hearth: Law and the Family in Nineteenth-Century America" is a work that combines a comprehensive examination of early American law with aspects of social history in an attempt to arrive at an overarching theme of the development of family law--what would later become "domestic relations" law--and its influence on the larger society. Grossberg relies heavily on legal sources, including appellate court rulings and legal tracts, to construct a three-stage progression of American family law.

According to the book, colonial family law was patriarchal in structure, tied closely to the state, and relegated women and children to the control of men. The American Revolution threw the colonial legal system, already under stress from a variety of factors including but not limited to the ability of settlers to leave for new lands, into chaos. What appeared in its place after a lengthy period of legal transformation involving an amalgamation of English legal principles and an emerging belief in American common law was a form Grossberg calls the republican family. The republican unit displaced the old patriarchal legal system in favor of laws that recognized individuals within the family. Too, this new form believed that state intervention in domestic matters was an evil best avoided. From the middle to the end of the nineteenth century, family laws across the board came under frequent assault from social reformers seeking to increase the role of the state in every aspect of the family. The end result was a hybrid of republican values and state intervention, of judicial discretion and legislative directives.

The author examines courtship contracts, nuptials, the fitness of those seeking to marry, contraception and abortion, the legal rights of illegitimate offspring, and custody rights. Repeatedly, Grossberg contends that the courts took the initiative in constructing a body of laws and rulings that supported individual rights within the family. Nowhere is this support more apparent than in laws concerning the rights of women and children. Custody cases tossed out the old concepts of colonial patriarchy, in which fathers held the ultimate power over spouses and children, and replaced it with a new system that allowed mothers to keep their children in cases of family disintegration. As for children, judges began allowing illegitimate offspring to petition for shares of family estates, something that was never allowed under the male oriented English law. Moreover, magistrates considered the emotional and physical well being of children, arguing that the "best interests of the child" required a reassessment of the father's dominance in family life. In this way and many others, argues Grossberg, judges assumed a patriarchal function in the American family.

"Governing the Hearth" is at its most fascinating describing the issues of birth control during the nineteenth century. The turmoil over this subject today tends to obscure how unimportant the issue was in the early part of the nineteenth century. American jurists subscribed to a belief stretching back into medieval times that claimed an abortion was not a sin or crime until the baby moved inside the womb. Called "quickening," this belief stood as accepted law until social reformers began agitating for new rulings against abortions performed at any stage of impregnation. Likewise, contraceptives came under attack from figures such as Andrew Comstock, who convinced Congress to pass laws banning the use of medicines and devices sent through the mail. One reason these chapters intrigue is because they show the relationship between the states and the federal government. During the early to mid nineteenth century, state's rights carried more weight than the powers of the federal government. The issues surrounding abortions are so controversial today that it staggers the imagination to realize there was a time when individual states decided the issue. Grossberg unfortunately never mentions how state versus federal rights played a part in family law.

The chapters on birth control laws succeed as well because they constitute one of the few areas in which the author links social history with his legal research. It is in these sections that the reader encounters the people involved in both sides of the issues, the unfortunate souls caught up in the tumult the courts experienced as the social reformers won their battles. Far too often the issues and court cases covered in this book seem like they float beyond the reach of any social, political, or economic realities. In some cases there can be little question as to why the courts dealt with certain issues. Even a cursory knowledge of American history explains why issues arose over the polygamy question in what is present day Utah. The same goes for miscegenation and the incorporation of freed slaves into preexisting marriage laws. But other parts of the book raise questions about what inspired legal changes during a particular time. On several occasions, Grossberg resorts to vague references about Victorian era perceptions regarding female behavior, specifically in the chapter on breach of marriage contracts. This explanation seems overly simplistic.

"Governing the Hearth" ultimately does make a compelling case for its central thesis, namely that the American legal system went through three distinct phases as outlined above. The book also convincingly argues that the fortunes of women and children improved greatly during the nineteenth century, and does so without overestimating their gains. For example, while women could retain custody of their children in the event of family disintegration they still had to fit societal standards of good conduct as defined by a patriarchal mentality. But the fact that women began to emerge as individuals with definite rights was family law's most significant contribution during the nineteenth century, laying the groundwork for greater gains in the next 100 years.

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In this widely acclaimed landmark study, Joan Hoff illustrates how women remain second- class citizens under the current legal system and questions whether the continued pursuit of equality based on a one-size-fits-all vision of traditional individual rights is really what will most improve conditions for women in America as they prepare for the twenty-first century.Concluding that equality based on liberal male ideology is no longer an adequate framework for improving women's legal status, Hoff's highly original and incisive volume calls for a demystification of legal doctrine and a reinterpretation of legal texts (including the Constitution) to create a feminist jurisprudence.

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General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1920Original Publisher: Little Brown ... Read more

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This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Butterworth & co. in 1899 in 232 pages; Subjects: Law; Law / General; Law / Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice; Law / International; Law / Legal History; Travel / Essays & Travelogues; ... Read more

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Professor Milsom works out a fresh view of the beginnings of the common law concerning land. The received picture depends upon progressive assumptions: key words began with their later meanings; the law began with abstract ideas of property; a tenant's title to his tenement was never subject to his lord's control; the lord had no discretion, only the power to decide disputes according to external criteria; jurisdiction in that sense was all the lord lost as royal remedies developed; and all the tenant gained was better protection of unaltered rights. It is a picture of procedural changes taking place against an unchanging background, with the feudal structure at the beginning almost as insubstantial as it was to be at the end. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent review of a difficult topic
This book provides an excellent overview of the complexity of legal jurisdiction in the Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the years prior to statehood.It covers tribal legal status and the loss of the limited self-government that the five tribes enjoyed prior to the Civil War.For anyone truly interested in the 'wild west' of the region this book explains WHY things were happening. ... Read more

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Livestock grazing is the most widespread commercial useof federal public lands. The image of a herd grazing on Bureau of LandManagement or U.S. Forest Service lands is so traditional that manyview this use as central to the history and culture of the West. Yetthe grazing program costs far more to administer than it generates inrevenues, and grazing affects all other uses of public lands, causingpotentially irreversible damage to native wildlife and vegetation.

THE WESTERN RANGE REVISITED proposes a landscape-level strategy forconserving native biological diversity on federal rangelands, astrategy based chiefly on removing livestock from large tracts of aridBLM lands in ten western states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho,Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming.

Drawing from range ecology, conservation biology, law, and economics,Debra L. Donahue examines the history of federal grazing policy andthe current debate on federal multiple-use, sustained-yield policiesand changing priorities for our public lands. Donahue, a lawyer andwildlife biologist, uses existing laws and regulations, historicaldocuments, economic statistics, and current scientific thinking tomake a strong case for a land-management strategy that has been, untilnow, "unthinkable."

A groundbreaking interdisciplinary work, THE WESTERN RANGE REVISITEDdemonstrates that conserving biodiversity by eliminating or reducinglivestock grazing makes economic sense, is ecologically expedient, andcan be achieved under current law.Amazon.com Review
What happens when you dare talk about evicting cows from the West? If you're professor Debra Donahue, a considerably nonplussed Wyoming state senator threatens to introduce legislation to dissolve your employer, the University of Wyoming law school. While Senator Jim Twiford's threat can be viewed as a stunt, there's no denying that Donahue and her book The Western Range Revisited have upset the status quo in this arid state with a population less than that of Salt Lake City. Specifically, Donahue recommends livestock be removed from public lands "receiving 12 inches of precipitation or less annually." To support this argument, she examines a bumper crop of scientific evidence pointing to "severe degradation of western ranges" caused by overgrazing--and, in the process, unravels a complex tangle of regional politics and culture that foster such overgrazing. Why, for instance, does the livestock industry enjoy such political clout when it employs so few people? One reason, explains Donahue, is that the relatively unpopulous intermountain West "accounts for approximately one-third of the total Senate membership; thus westerners generally wield disproportionate influence on the Senate." Resulting from this influence, says Donahue, are two fallacies that conspire to keep livestock on the range despite poor return on investment and egregious environmental damage: "Public land grazing is important to the economic base of local communities, if not the region, and the ranching way of life merits preservation, both for its own sake and as a means of preserving the West's open spaces."

Cowboys take their lumps, too, from the author's cultural demythologizing: to wit, the so-called rugged individualists of Catron County, New Mexico--a hotbed of antigovernment fervor--collect more federal subsidies than the national average. Why? Because they're trying to live off public land that has been abused for more than a century.

Donahue concludes that grazing's "ecological impacts are more widespread than those of any other human activity in the West, and elimination of grazing holds greater potential for benefiting biodiversity than any other single land use measure." That said, the "essential ingredient yet lacking is the political will to oppose a narrow, but powerful, interest group--the deeply entrenched western livestock industry." Whether or not you agree with Donahue's thesis, her controversial book will go a long way toward bringing this debate to a broader audience. --Langdon Cook ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Public Land Grazing nearly Killed Me
After reading Debra Donahue's powerful book on the misuse and abuse of western grazing lands, I'm of the opinion that she might be as well remembered in the future as Rachel Carson is today. She has vividly pointed to a problem that has broad negative implications for everyone in the U.S. today.

Permit me to briefly tell you my story with respect to open range grazing.

While vacationing at my in-laws in Arizona in 1997, I went down to the San Pedro River with my daughter and some nephews. While the kids played in the water, I sat in the water watching - scratching some bug bites that I'd received the previous day. After several hours, I took a walk upstream about 100 yards, and discovered the body of a dead "open range" cow lying in the river.

Five days later, back in California, I awoke to a raging fever with rashes up both legs and a left thumb triple its normal size. After rushing to the hospital and beginning emergency antibiotic treatment, I was diagnosed with an infection by "flesh eating bacteria".

Let their be no doubt, my exposure to a antibiotic-doped-up range cow dead in the San Pedro River was the cause of my ailment.

After five days and 39 pints of antibiotics, I went home with a thumb joint that is fused and unusable. If not for the presently effective antibiotics still available to humans, I would have had my left hand amputated.

Debra's book touches upon the ecological destruction that is done on Western grazing lands for the sake of partially producting 3% of the U.S. beef production. (All these cows must be sent to a feed lot to be fed adequately for butchering.) You must read this book and you must act upon it -- it's for all our sake.

Terrible book
This book is simply a polemic to eliminate livestock from the rangelands of the US and has no objective basis in fact.It has no merit whatsoever except as a guide to the limits to which anti-large mammal fanatics will go.I would have given it zero stars, but that is not one of the alternatives.

Missed some major points
Debra Donahue lays out lots of stats but misses the key facts about the ownership of the "public lands" of the west.If you are looking for a book that says cattle are bad, this is it.If you are looking for some facts to broaden your knowledge of the west or the land, this is not it.

Look closer
Debra Donahue is a University of Wyoming law professor with a background in range and wildlife biology. She is motivated by a striking concern for the Western landscape. In The Western Range Revisited,Donahue makes a factual, thoughtful, but unconvincing case for ending livestock grazing on public lands. After laying an impressive foundation, Donahue stumbles badlyin Chapter 8 - "The Socio-Economic Landscape."She states the two main arguments against her thesis: "Public land grazing is important to the economic base of the local community, if not the region, and the ranching way of life merits preservation both for its own sake and as a means of preserving the West's open spaces (p 229)."If we do away with these arguments, "no warrant should remain for leaving livestock on arid public lands (ibid)."She fails to do so. Many statistics are used but not fully explored.Only 2% of all livestock are produced by federal lease lands.Perhaps, but what of the local economies?About 70% of ranchers do not rely on federal leases (p 253).But what of the 30% who do? Large operations (those running 151 Animal Units or more) generate 75% or more of their income from cows; small operations (150 Animal Units or less) generate only 39% of their income from stock .(p 240). Donahue states that 300 units is a break-even operation - yet argues at the same time that eliminating leases would matter little since ranchers could, 1) intensify use of their private lands, or, 2) reduce herd size. Intensification of private lands would create severe overgrazing, water pollution from runoff, and destroy wildlife habitat (since 75% of the big game winter range alone is found on private lands in the Rockies).Reducing herd size would drop more ranches below her own definition of "breaking even" which would lead ultimately to subdivision and development.Ranching is already economically tenuous - "only a 1-3% return on capital investment" (p 260).Donahue wants to make it worse. We cannot argue away geographic certainties with a dither of statistics.I have worked with The Nature Conservancy, the Montana Land Reliance, and other trusts for 24 years.Ihave done biological inventories on scores of ranches and designed nearly 100 conservation easements.A profound, simple fact has emerged - overall, ranchers do a good job as land stewards on both land they own and land they lease.If they did not, why do so many ranches meet the qualification criteria of groups formed to protect biological diversity?I have designed conservation easements on ranches that protect wolves, grizzly bears, black-footed ferrets, bald eagles, and an array of endemic non-game organisms ranging from a rare rockcress to a globally endangered freshwater sponge. Many ranchers are conservationists and to make sweeping condemnations is insulting and plain silly. Donahue does not understand ranchers and makes little attempt to.The two major books on ranching culture were missing from her bibliography: Paul Starrs' Let the Cowboy Ride: Cattle Ranching in the American West (1998) and Terry Jordan's North American Cattle Ranching Frontiers (1993). The author also does not understand land regulation and conservation, making mis-statements about conservation easements and land trusts, and falling back on ineffective, politically untenable tools such as zoning as a way to stop development. None of the literature on these critical subjects was used (see, for example: Saving American Farmland: What Works by the American Farmland Trust, 1997).That is a glaring omission given the stakes here. Debra Donahue reached too far with The Western Range Revisited.She argues that ranching is much like mining and logging - an environmentally destructive, economically misguided use of public lands (see, The Economic Pursuit of Quality by Thomas Power, 1988).In fact, the landscape ecology of ranches is much different - they serve as habitat corridors for species movement and as buffers between development and wild lands. IfDonahue had persuaded us of the need to revise or eliminate riparian grazing, increase protection for Heritage caliber biota, and revoke the permits of poor livestock managers, this book would have made a valuable contribution.Instead, she chose to attack and alienate an entire group of people who are worthy of being understood and respected. The Western culture wars continue. John B. Wright, Department of Geography, New Mexico State University

Rachel Carson Redux
After reading Debra Donahue's powerful book on the misuse and abuse of western grazing lands, I'm of the opinion that she might be as well remebered in the future as Rachel Carson is today.She has vividly pointed to a problem that has broad negative implications on everyone living in the U.S. today.

Permit me to briefly tell you my story with respect to open range grazing.

While vacationing at my in-laws in Arizona in 1997, I went down to the San Pedro River with my daughter and some nephews.While the kids played in the water, I sat in the water watching - scratching some bug bites that I'd received the previous day.After several hours, I took a walk upstream about 100 yards, and discovered the body of a dead "open range" cow lying in the river.

Five days later, back in California, I awoke to a ranging fever with rashes up both legs and a left thumb triple its normal size.After rushing to the hospital and beginning emergency antibiotic treatment, I was diagnosed with "flesh eating bacteria".

Let their be no doubt, my exposure to a antibiotic-doped-up range cow dead in the San Pedro River was the cause of my ailment.

After five days and 39 pints of antibiotics, I went home with a thumb joint that is fused and unusable.If not for modern antibiotics, I would have had my left hand amputated.

Debra's book touches upon the ecological destruction that is done on Western grazing lands for the sake of partially producting 3% of the U.S. beef production.(All these cows must be sent to a feed lot to be fed adequately for butchering.)You must read this book and you must act upon it -- it's for all our sake. ... Read more

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During his career at Harvard, Morton Horwitz changed the questions legal historians ask. The Transformation of American Law, 1780–1860 (1977) disclosed the many ways that judge-made law favored commercial and property interests and remade law to promote economic growth. The Transformation of American Law, 1870–1960 (1992) continued that project, with a focus on ideas that reshaped law as we struggled for objective and neutral legal responses to our country’s crises.

In this book, Horwitz’s students re-examine legal history from America’s colonial era to the late twentieth century. They ask classic Horwitzian questions, of how legal doctrine, thought, and practice are shaped by the interests of the powerful, as well as by the ideas of lawyers, politicians, and others. The essays address current questions in legal history, from colonial legal practice to questions of empire, civil rights, and constitutionalism in a democracy. The essays are, like Horwitz, provocative and original as they continue his transformation of American legal history.

Customer Reviews (1)

A Worthy Festschrift for Morton J. Horwitz
This is an excellent collection of articles in honor of Professor Horwitz of Harvard Law School, written by some of his students, colleagues and friends.A second edited volume is to come.Horwitz had a dynamic impact on the field of American legal history when he published his two "Transformation of American Law" volumes, the first covering 1780-1860 (published in 1879), and the second focusing on 1870-1960 (published in 1994). These studies are still of immense value to any serious student of this field. Many of Horwitz's "revolutionary" ideas have now become accepted orthodoxy.

Most of the studies deal with American legal history in one way or another.They break down as follows chronologically:The first three essays deal with the early national period.These topics include Kent and Story; colonial constitutional law antecedents; and the idea of overlapping sovereignty.The next group of essays (4-6) focus on the antebellum period and are concerned with topics such as firm law practices, the Fugitive Slave Act, and antebellum property law concepts.Next, two essays (7 & 8) discuss developments in the late 19th century relating to limited liability and a fascinating discussion of James Coolidge Carter and his mugwump perspective by Lewis A. Grossman.Four essays ( 9-12) deal with 20th century topics, including the "clear and present danger" test, Hugo Black's conservative turn on civil rights, free riders, and an excellent essay on the development of legal pluralism by Dalia Tsuk Mitchell, author of an outstandingstudy of Felix Cohen (also reviewed on Amazon).Several studies deal with Horwitz and his impact on the authors' own work (13, 14 & 18).There also are two essays on intellectual property issues. Amongst the most valuable essays is one (#15) by Charles Donahue, Jr., of HLS, on the current status of legal history as a discipline.

The essays are uniformly of superior quality, supported by extensive footnotes attached to each study. An excellent foreword by Elena Kagan, at the time Dean of HLS and now Solicitor General, and a preface by the editors set the stage for the collection.A very valuable resource of anyone seriously interested in the field of legal history.

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Judge Johnson Advanced Our Constitutional Liberties
Judge Frank M. Johnson achieved national recognition for his decisions that supported Martin Luther King and other leaders of the civil rights movement, and for his defense of the individual rights of women, students, prisoners, mental health patients, and poor criminal defendants.Because these decisions expanded the scope of those Constitutional amendments that assert individual liberties and proclaim the equality of all citizens, Judge Johnson is often viewed as one of the great liberal judges of the Twentieth Century.On the contrary, as Tony Freyer convincingly demonstrates in his analytical introduction and conclusion to this selective collection of Judge Johnson's writings and public statements, Johnson's core values were fundamentally conservative, in that they were "based on individual freedom defined in terms of equal opportunity and equality under law."
The law, of course, is the U.S. Constitution, and Johnson's decisions, as his essays indicate, were informed and circumscribed by a profound understanding of the mechanics of the law.As Johnson told Bill Moyers in a 1980 public television interview, the transcript of which is published for the first time in this book, Johnson realized certain limitations when he opposed busing as a tool of desegregation because "when you make a child, or children, get up at five o'clock in the morning and wait for a bus to haul them 10 or 15 miles, past schools to which they were formerly eligible to go, then I think you are doing tremendous damage".Striving for judicial clarity above and beyond moral fervor, Johnson also said that he had never been inside of a prison or a mental facility because he "needed not to go there," but to make his decisions on "the basis of evidence that's presented during the adversary proceeding."
Judge Johnson'smomentous injunction in Williams v. Wallace that ordered Governor George Wallace to allow a four-day civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery (from March 21 to March 25, 1965), led by Dr. King along Highway 80, was rendered in a carefully crafted opinion based on the principle that the right to protest on public property should be "commensurate with the enormity of the wrongs that are being protested and petitioned against."
As these essays make clear, Judge Johnson believed that the role of the American judiciary and of the entire legal profession should be one of activism, not on the side of morality, but to maintain the supremacy of the law.Johnson wrote that " the lawyer should remember that adisrespect or disregard for law is always the first sign of a disintegrating society."Throughout his forty-one years on the bench, Judge Johnson sought to decide the cases that came before him solely on their particular merits.His injunctive orders that sought to remedy deplorable conditions in prisons and mental health facilities were taken because, in his view, elected officials had failed to discharge their designated and constitutional responsibilities for fair and equitable governance.Judge Johnson clearly believed that all citizens, including the mentally retarded, the insane, and those convicted of felonies, still have certain basic rights to include sanitary living conditions, freedom from unwarranted punishment, and, if feasible, the right to rehabilitation.As he eloquently concluded his essay "Equal Access to Justice,"the promise inscribed on the Supreme Court Building of"Equal Justice Under Law" cannot be fulfilled unless there is equal access to justice.
Towards the end of his judicial career, Judge Johnson wrote: "If we abdicate responsibility to address the difficult questions of our time, those in need of refuge from the torrents of political, economic, and religious forces will find no haven in the law and the law will no longer be supreme. . . .A judge must always be consumed by a passion for justice which propels judgment toward the just conclusion."This forceful summation of an American judge's responsibilities is elaborated in this artfully chosen collection of Johnson's insightful and thought-provoking essays.This is a valuable addition to the biographic literature on Frank Johnson that should be welcomed by all students of recent American History.

Judge Johnson Advanced Our Constitutional Liberties
Federal Judge Frank Johnson achieved national recognition for his decisions that supported Martin Luther King and other leaders of the civil rights movement, and for his defense of the individual rights of women, students, prisoners, mental health patients, and poor criminal defendants.Because these decisions expanded the scope of those Constitutional amendments that assert individual liberties and proclaim the equality of all citizens, Judge Johnson is often viewed as one of the great liberal judges of the Twentieth Century.On the contrary, as Tony Freyer convincingly demonstrates in his analytical introduction and conclusion to this collection of Judge Johnson's writings and public statements, Johnson's core values were fundamentally conservative, in that they were based on individual freedom "defined in terms of equal opportunity and equality under law."The law, of course, is the U.S. Constitution and Johnson's decisions, as his essays indicate, were informed and circumscribed by a profound understanding of what the law does and does not permit.As Johnson told Bill Moyers in a 1980 public television interview, published for the first time in this book, Johnson opposed busing as a tool of desegregation because "when you make a child, or children, get up at five o'clock in the morning and wait for a bus to haul them 10 or 15 miles, past schools to which they were formerly eligible to go, then I think you are doing tremendous damage."Johnson also said that he had never been in a prison or mental institution because he "needed not to go there," but to make his decisions on "the basis of evidence that's presented during the adversary proceeding."This is a valuable addition to the biographic literature on Frank Johnson, that should be welcomed by all students of recent American History. ... Read more

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The international and distinguished group of authors address some of the most lively contemporary problems in their respective fields. With a firm focus on texts and contexts, the papers come together to provide a coherent volume dedicated to one of the greatest contemporary Romanists, legal historians and comparative lawyers: Professor Watson. This volume will be of interest to all scholars and students of Roman law, ancient Jewish and Chinese law, legal history and comparative law. ... Read more

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This volume, the fifth in the series, contains the proceedings from the conference Custom: The Development and Use of a Legal Concept in the Middle Ages held at the Law School at the University of Aarhus in May 2008. The volume covers topics from local case studies and studies of learned law to broader reflections on the development and use of the legal concept consuetudo and its connection with other sources of law, with the balance between local and regional power structures, and secular and ecclesiastical societies in medieval Europe. Combining the approaches of several historical disciplines - political, social, intellectual, and legal - international eminent scholars offer their views on central aspects of the function of legal customs and of the development of one of the most debated concepts in legal historiography of the last century. Students and scholars of European legal history and legal culture and of medieval history in general should find this collection of essays a useful contribution to the continuing discussion about the development of European law, legal principles and notions of justice. ... Read more

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Fathers of Conscience examines high-court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed-race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and estates law to give their slave partners and children official recognition and thus circumvent the law of slavery. The will contests that followed determined whether that elevated status would be approved or denied by courts of law.

Bernie D. Jones argues that these will contests indicated a struggle within the elite over race, gender, and class issues--over questions of social mores and who was truly family. Judges thus acted as umpires after a man's death, deciding whether to permit his attempts to provide for his slave partner and family. Her analysis of these differing judicial opinions on inheritance rights for slave partners makes an important contribution to the literature on the law of slavery in the United States. ... Read more

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The volume examines the informal sources of English Law that lie undiscovered because they are not included in Statutes, law reports, or in current legal teaching. Through his work with primary documents the author shows that this informal source of law is too important to go unnoticed by legal historians and commentators. ... Read more

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Diane Goeres-Gardner makes readers eyewitnesses to frontier justice in Necktie Parties. This is the story ofthe men who climbed the gallows steps and faced the hangman’s noose during the early years of settlement in Oregon.Today, capital punishment is a controversial topic, in the United States and around the world. That wasn’t the case during the 1800s on America’s western frontier. Executions were public events drawing hundreds—sometimes thousands—of residents from miles around. Parents often brought their children, believing the youngsters should learn what happened to people who choose the wrong paths in life.The record of Oregon’s hangings during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is a history of ordinary people who committed extraordinary acts. In many cases, the condemned enjoyed their notoriety, at least up to the moment the noose was tightened around their necks.Goeres-Gardner also looks at the backgrounds of the condemned and their victims, the crimes and the investigations. The author uses trial records, witness testimony, newspaper reports and other historical records to bring to life each of the more than fifty cases included in Necktie Parties. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Necktie Parties: A History of Legal Executions in Oregon, 1851-1905
The fellow on the cover, Clyde Branton, was my wife's X husbands grandfathers brother, so we had to read this book.It is well done, and a very interesting read.There is a lot of well researched history of early Oregon in this book. ... Read more

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In this volume, Gordon Morris Bakken traces thedistinctive development of western legal history.The contributors'essays provide succinct descriptions of major cases, legislation, andindividual western states' constitutional provisions that are uniquein the American legal system. To assist the reader, the volume isorganized by subject, including natural resources, municipalauthority, business regulation, American Indian sovereignty and waterrights, women, and Mormons. ... Read more

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Law in Western United States
Being able to review this on-line was most helpful.I could determine if the book had information that I needed.The book is a very good source for explaining the development of law and land law in the western United States and shows that it is a separate body of law derived from but not the same as the common law and riparian law east of the 100th meridian. ... Read more