Also probed is the part played by the early federal courts in America's neutrality-based foreign policy and in promoting economic enterprise by affording national forums for credit transactions, for corporations, for patent claimants, for those who suffered losses on the sea including maritime labor, and for real property owners and claimants. Political and social control issues, some of historic significance, reached the courts in the mid-Atlantic South. Professor Fish treats the national security impulses that dominated the seditious libel trial of James Callender, the treason trial of Aaron Burr, and the trials of numerous privateers-pirates for violating the nation's piracy and neutrality laws including the first capital case heard by a regularly constituted circuit court. The author explores judges' invocation of higher law, their embrace of a common law of crimes and their perplexity in construing uncertain language in statutes prohibiting the international slave trade.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
In this original, provocative contribution to the debate over economic inequality, Ganesh Sitaraman argues that a strong and sizable middle class is a prerequisite for America’s constitutional system. A New York Times Notable Book of 2017 For most of Western history, Sitaraman argues, constitutional thinkers assumed economic inequality was inevitable and inescapable—and they designed governments to prevent class divisions from spilling over into class warfare. The American Constitution is different. Compared to Europe and the ancient world, America was a society of almost unprecedented economic equality, and the founding generation saw this equality as essential for the preservation of America’s republic. Over the next two centuries, generations of Americans fought to sustain the economic preconditions for our constitutional system. But today, with economic and political inequality on the rise, Sitaraman says Americans face a choice: Will we accept rising economic inequality and risk oligarchy or will we rebuild the middle class and reclaim our republic? The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution is a tour de force of history, philosophy, law, and politics. It makes a compelling case that inequality is more than just a moral or economic problem; it threatens the very core of our constitutional system.
Leadership on the Federal Bench: The Craft and Activism of Jack Weinstein considers the ways a particularly gifted federal judge seized the opportunities available to district judges to influence the results of the cases before him, and employed the tools available to him to make policy having a national impact. In the book, author Jeffrey Morris considers the ways in which the judge, Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York, has been limited by his position. This book adds to the slim literature about the policy-making role of district judges applying the work of legal historians, political scientists and those trained in the law. Focusing upon an admitted judicial activist - perhaps the most famous, innovative and controversial district judge sitting today - the book permits a close look at activism at the trial level. Leadership on the Federal Bench: The Craft and Activism of Jack Weinstein begins by analyzing the job of a federal district judge and why it is profitable to study Judge Weinstein. Related topics include Weinstein's background before appointment to the bench; the political and legal environment within which Weinstein has judged and the characteristics of the district in which he sat and its possible impact on him. Part of the book focuses on Weinstein's judicial output for each of his four decades on the bench. Cases are drawn from a diverse number of areas, among them the areas of civil rights, freedom of speech, search and seizures, organized crime and political corruption cases, evidence and procedure. Finally, conclusions are made on the role of district courts, judicial activism in general, along with a summary of Judge Weinstein's career.
Charles Cowlam’s career as a convict, spy, detective, congressional candidate, adventurer, and con artist spanned the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Gilded Age. His life touched many of the most prominent figures of the era, including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, and Ulysses S. Grant. One contemporary newspaper reported that Cowlam “has as many aliases as there are letters in the alphabet.” He was a chameleon in a world of strangers, and scholars have overlooked him due to his elusive nature. His intrigues reveal how Americans built trust amid the transience and anonymity of the nineteenth century. The stories Cowlam told allowed him to blend in to new surroundings, where he quickly cultivated the connections needed to extract patronage from influential members of American society. Whereas historians of capitalism have uncovered the vulnerabilities of an economic system dependent upon trust and personal relationships, Cowlam’s life exposes the liabilities of a political system constructed on the same foundations. Rather than perpetrating frauds against average citizens, Cowlam reserved his most fantastic schemes for officials in the highest levels of government. He is the only person to receive presidential pardons from both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. When the fighting ended, he conned his way into serving as a detective investigating Lincoln’s assassination, later parlaying that experience into positions with the Internal Revenue Service and the British government. Reconstruction offered additional opportunities for Cowlam to repackage his identity. He convinced Ulysses S. Grant to appoint him U.S. marshal and persuaded Republicans in Florida to allow him to run for Congress. After losing the election, Cowlam moved to New York, where he became a serial bigamist and started a fake secret society inspired by the burgeoning Granger movement. When the newspapers exposed his lies, he disappeared and spent the next decade living under an assumed name. He resurfaced in Dayton, Ohio, claiming to be a Union colonel suffering from dementia in an effort to gain admittance into the National Soldiers’ Home. In A Wonderful Career in Crime, Frank W. Garmon Jr. brings Cowlam’s stunning machinations to light for the first time.
This authoritative, balanced, and accessible reference resource provides readers with a wide-ranging survey of capital punishment in America, including its history, its legal and cultural foundations, and racial and economic factors in its application. This carefully crafted primer on the history and present state of capital punishment in the United States examines cultural, political, and legal factors and developments, as well as key figures, groups, and movements, by consolidating a wide variety of material into a single, convenient source. Utilizing a rich and varied array of scholarship and primary sources, this work examines historical, political, cultural, and legal factors and developments that have shaped the contours of capital punishment throughout American history. It examines key figures and organizations who have played pivotal roles in debates over the death penalty; provides readers with illuminating coverage of laws, cases, and the people involved; discusses the experiences of death row inmates; and explores questions and controversies revolving around the socioeconomic factors that influence the use of capital punishment.
This book addresses the myriad controversies and examines the evidence regarding capital punishment in America. It answers questions regarding topics like the efficacy of capital punishment in deterring violent crime, the risks of mistakes, legal issues related to capital punishment, and the monetary costs of keeping inmates on death row. Does the possibility of being put to death deter crime? Do the methods of execution matter? Is it possible for a state-ordered execution to be botched? Are innocent people ever sent to death row? Are there racial biases or other prejudices associated with the death penalty? This book examines the history of capital punishment in the United States; describes the significant issues, events, and cases; and addresses the controversies and legal issues surrounding capital punishment, making this important topic accessible to a wide range of readers. The book presents both sides of the argument on whether capital punishment should continue or be abolished, looking at the evidence regarding whether it is necessary for carrying out justice and deterring violent crime or whether the practice is inhumane, ineffective, biased in its application, and costly. Readers will gain insights into how capital punishment should be used, if at all; whether effective safeguards are in place to ensure that only the guilty receive the death penalty; what crimes deserve this sentence; whether juveniles or individuals with diminished mental capacity should ever be sentenced to death; potentially viable alternatives to the death penalty; and the hidden costs involved in our capital punishment system that make it so expensive. The book also contains primary documents relevant to capital punishment, such as excerpts from documents like the U.S. Constitution, the Hittite case laws, and the Code of Hammurabi, as well as descriptions of and excerpts from key cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In one of the lengthiest, noisiest, and hottest legal debates in U.S. history, Cruel and Unusual Punishment stands out as a levelheaded, even-handed, and thorough analysis of the issue. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution created one of the nation's most valued freedoms but, at the same time, one of its most persistent controversies. On 184 separate occasions, the Supreme Court attempted to decide what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment." Constitutional scholars Joseph A. Melusky and Judge Keith A. Pesto help readers make sense of the controversy. The authors begin by sketching the context of the debate in a general overview that addresses issues such as excessive bails and fines, and noncapital offenses. But their primary focus is capital punishment. In a detailed, chronologically ordered discussion, they trace the evolving opinion of the nation's highest court from the late 19th century to the present, analyzing issues, arguments, holdings, and outcomes.
In 1797 the bloodiest mutiny ever suffered by the Royal Navy took place on the British frigate HMS Hermione off the coast of Puerto Rico. Jonathan Robbins, a reputed American sailor who had been impressed into service, made his way to American shores. President John Adams bowed to Britain’s request for his extradition. Convicted of murder and piracy by a court-martial in Jamaica, Robbins was hanged. Adams’s catastrophic miscalculation ignited a political firestorm, only to be fanned by Robbins’s failure to receive his constitutional rights of due process and trial by jury by an American court. American Sanctuary brilliantly lays out in riveting detail the story of how the Robbins affair, amid the turbulent presidential campaign of 1800, inflamed the new nation and set in motion a constitutional crisis, resulting in Adams’s defeat and Thomas Jefferson’s election as the third president of the United States. Robbins’s martyrdom led directly to the country’s historic decision to grant political asylum to foreign refugees—a major achievement in fulfilling the promise of American independence.
