A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights
- ISBN-10
- 1107401348
- ISBN-13
- 9781107401341
- Category
- History
- Pages
- 220
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2015-01-26
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Author
- Laura F. Edwards
Description
Although hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the Civil War, perhaps the war's biggest casualty was the nation's legal order. A Nation of Rights 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. Ultimately, Laura F. Edwards argues that this new nation of rights offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2015-01-26
- 226 pages
- Paperback
- Cambridge University Press
-
- 2015-01-26
- - pages
- Ebook
- Cambridge University Press
Similar books
-
Changes in Law and Society During the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Legal History Documentary Reader
By Christian G. SamitoThe 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 ...
-
The Civil War and Reconstruction: A Documentary Reader
By Stanley HarroldThis 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....
-
A New Birth of Freedom: The Effect of the Civil War and Reconstruction on Ohio Law
By W. Thomas MinahanHowever, 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.
-
Black Rights in the Reconstruction Era
By Vanessa HollowayLowry, Thomas P. Confederate Heroines: 120 Southern Women Convicted by Union Military Justice. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. ———. The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Selected Bibliography 103.
-
A Documentary History of the American Civil War Era: Volume 3, Judicial Decisions, 1857-1866
By Thomas C. Mackey... Aaron C. Stephens, alias Aaron D. Stephens, and edwin Coppie, Shields Green, and John Copland, severally, ... aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction aforesaid, in and upon the bodies of Thomas Boerly, George W. Turner, ...
-
A Documentary History of the Civil War Era: Volume 1, Legislative Achievements
By Thomas C. MackeyA Documentary History of the American Civil War Era is the first comprehensive collection of public policy actions, political speeches, and judicial decisions related to the American Civil War.
-
Law in American History: Volume 1: From the Colonial Years Through the Civil War
By G. Edward WhiteBy 1827, disappointed in failing to secure a federal district judgeship for the Southern District ofNew York, Wheaton had accepted an ambassadorship to Denmark.91 Wheaton was succeeded as Reporter for the Supreme Court by Richard Peters ...
-
A Documentary History of the American Civil War Era: Judicial Decisions, 1867–1896
By Thomas C. MackeyThis second volume of Judicial Decisions covers the years 1867 to 1896. Included here are some of the classic judicial decisions of this time such as the 1869 decision in Texas v.
-
Reconstructing Reconstruction: The Supreme Court and the Production of Historical Truth
By Pamela Brandwein' Brandwein forces us to pay more attention to the ways in which the reconstruction of history (in this case, the history of Reconstruction) becomes a vital resource in contemporary constitutional politics.
-
Gendered Strife & Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruction
By Laura F. EdwardsJ. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson . 349-94 . New York : Oxford University ... Trelease , Allen W. The North Carolina Railroad , 1849–1871 , and the Modernization of North Carolina . Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina ...