Legal and Constitutional History

2008

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutoty ex~eption and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements. no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 2002

2012

Preface xv Articles of Confederation xvii The Constitution of the United States xxiii Timeline of Events in American Legal and Political History xxxvii Biographies of Selected Justices of the Supreme Court li Chapter One • The Constitution and Judicial Power 3 A. Background to the Creation of the Constitution 3 B. Judicial Review 6 1. Review of Federal Action 6 A Timeline of Events Leading to Marbury v. Madison 7 Marbury v. Madison 9 2. Judicial Review of State Actions Martin v. Hunter's Lessee C. Modes of Constitutional Interpretation 1. Historical Background Cohens v. Virginia Calder v. Bull 2. Sources of Constitutional Interpretation a. Text b. History c. Structure d. Precedent e. Consensus f. Purposes 3. The Modern Court and Constitutional Interpretation District of Columbia v. Heller D. The Limits of the Judicial Power 1. Justiciability a. Standing

University of Toronto Law Journal, 2012

Critical Legal History (CLH) is currently being subjected to sustained critique and re-examination by some legal historians. This review essay looks at this debate in the context of two recent books on American legal history: Christopher Tomlins’s Freedom Bound: Law, Labor, and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America, 1580–1865 (2010) and Laura Edwards’s The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South (2009). In keeping with the thrust of CLH scholarship, both books problematize the connection between law and narratives of freedom and equality in American history, and both show law as a significant force for non-freedom and inequality. Yet, in a recent symposium on Robert Gordon’s classic article ‘Critical Legal Histories’ (1984), both authors chose to distance themselves from CLH. After explaining what is significant and important about each book, this review essay describes the debate in that symposium. Notwithsta...

British journal of law and society, 1980

It is in no way snide.to suggest that The Transformation of American Law is a long-awaited book. The brilliant portions of the overall argument that Morton J. Horwitz of the Harvard Law School previously laid before us only whetted appetites for the full-course feast. The wait has proved worthwhile. The result is a Lucullan banquet of memorable quality and proportions. This volume is a seminal work in the meaningful sense that it has reshaped the framework for the interpretation of American legal history. Although The Transformation of American Law must be read to

Reviews in American History, 2010

Chicago-Kent} Law Review, 2014