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During America's turbulent antebellum era, the Supreme Court decided important cases—most famously Dred Scott—that spoke to sectional concerns and shaped the nation's response to the slavery question. Much scholarship has been devoted to individual cases and to the Taney Court, but this is the first comprehensive examination of the major slavery cases that came before the Court between 1825 and 1861. Earl Maltz presents a detailed analysis of all eight cases and explains how each fit into the slavery politics of its time, beginning with The Antelope, heard by the John Marshall Court, and continuing with the seven other cases taken before the Roger Taney Court: The Amistad, Groves v. Slau...
Closely examines on of the Supreme Court's most infamous decisions: that went far beyond one slave's suit for "freeman" status by declaring that ALL blacks--freemen as well as slaves--were not, and never could become, U.S. citizens, bringing an end to the 1820 Missouri Compromise, while also resulting in the outrage that led to the Civil War.
Through a close analysis of legislative proceedings and of the precise language used, Maltz builds a strong case that Congressional actions on civil rights, including statutes such as the Freedman's Bureau Bill, the District of Columbia Suffrage Bill, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, as well as the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments of the early Reconstruction era generally reflected the ideology and intentions of the more conservative Republicans. These "moderates" advocated limited absolute equality rather than total racial equality and opposed the undue federal regulation of private and state actions.
Maltz (law, Rutgers U.) discusses the often discongruous nature of the Burger Court, explaining its generally centrist proceedings, yet acknowledging that it, at times, produced decisions even more liberal than that of the Warren Court, its liberal predecessor. At the same time this book shows patterns that explain the doctrinal positions adopted by the majority in each case. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR
Chronicles the case of a runaway slave who was tracked to Boston by his owner. Compellingly details the struggle over his fate and how that became a focal point for national controversy. Reveals how the case became one of the most dramatic and widely publicized events in the long-running conflict over the issue of fugitive slaves.
Beginning with Brown v. Board of Education and continuing with a series of decisions that, among other things, expanded the reach of the Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court that Richard Nixon inherited had presided over a progressive revolution in the law. But by 1972 Nixon had managed to replace four members of the so-called Warren Court with justices more aligned with his own law-and-order conservatism. Nixon's appointees—Warren Burger as Chief Justice and Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, and William Rehnquist as associate justices—created a politically diverse bench, one that included not only committed progressives and conservatives, but also justices with a wide variety of more moderate ...
With seven of its justices appointed by Republican presidents, today's Supreme Court has significantly altered America's legal landscape since 1986 by tilting constitutional jurisprudence to the right. That was the goal of Presidents Reagan and Bush in filling court vacancies and has been felt in cases related to federalism, economic rights, and affirmative action. However, liberal issues such as abortion have moved only marginally to the right, while rulings by the Court on school prayer and gay rights have moved constitutional doctrine slightly to the left. In this collection of original articles, prominent constitutional scholars are joined by new voices from the cutting edge of academia ...
Maltz reformulates the justification for originalist review and refines originalist theory itself; he argues that a pure originalist approach mandates excessive judicial intervention under the Constitution; and he shows that most nonoriginalist theorists have failed to provide a sufficient functional justification for nonoriginalist intervention.
Police are required to obey the law. While that seems obvious, courts have lost track of that requirement due to misinterpreting the two constitutional provisions governing police conduct: the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Fourth Amendment forbids "unreasonable searches and seizures" and is the source of most constitutional constraints on policing. Although that provision technically applies only to the federal government, the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in the wake of the Civil War, has been deemed to apply the Fourth Amendment to the States. This book contends that the courts’ misinterpretation of these provisions has led them to hold federal and state law enforcement mistaken...
At the ideological center of the Supreme Court sits Anthony M. Kennedy, whose pivotal role on the Rehnquist Court is only expected to grow in importance now that he is the lone 'swing Justice' on the Roberts Court. The Ties Goes to Freedom is the first book-length analysis of Kennedy, and it challenges the conventional wisdom that his jurisprudence is inconsistent and incoherent. Using the hot-button issues of privacy rights, race, and free speech, this book demonstrates how Kennedy forcefully articulates a libertarian constitutional vision. The Tie Goes to Freedom fills two significant voids—one examining the jurisprudence of the man at the ideological center of the Supreme Court, the other demonstrating the compatibility of an expansive judicial role with libertarian political theory. At the end of Kennedy’s tenure as the most important swing justice in recent Supreme Court history, Helen Knowles provides an updated edition of her highly regarded book on Justice Kennedy and his constitutional vision.