410 Pages
by
Routledge
This volume's essays reveal that the abolitionists' impact on United States law and the Constitution did not end with the Civil War. The immediate postwar Reconstruction amendments were both rooted in the radically anti-positivistic, natural rights philosophy long espoused by the radical political abolitionists. Implementing protection for black civil rights, however, proved much more difficult.
Baronet, Randy E. Was Slavery Unconstitutional before the Thirteenth Amendment?: Lysander Spooner's Theory of Interpretation. Pacific Law Journal 28 (1997); Ernst, Daniel R. Legal Positivism, Abolitionist Litigation, and the New Jersey Slave Cases of 1845. Law and History Review 4 (1986); Finkelman, Paul. The Kidnapping of John Davis and the Adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. Journal of Southern History 56 (1990); Richards, David A.J. Abolitionist Political and Constitutional Theory and the Reconstruction Amendments. Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 25 (1992); Wiecek, William M. Slavery and Abolition before the United States Supreme Court, 1820- 1860. Journal of American History 65 (1978); Williams, Sandra Boyd. 'The Indiana Supreme Court and the Struggle against Slavery. Indiana Law Review 30 (1997).
Biography
John R. McKivigan
