Exile, Choice, and Loyalism: Taking and Restoring Dignity in the American Revolution

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (04) ◽  
pp. 841-865 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Hulsebosch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Economic Injury ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Revolution

Taking a cue from Bernadette Atuahene's concept of “dignity takings” and her insight that government expropriation inflicts more than economic injury, this essay analyzes how American revolutionaries defined political membership, penalized and expropriated British loyalists, and then allowed some to join the American polity in the decade after the Revolution. Many recovered their property, professions, and legal privileges. However, because most loyalists could choose to remain loyal or join the Revolution, they did not lose human dignity as Atuahene defines it. Case studies of two reintegrating lawyers, Richard Harison and William Rawle, explore loyalism, the loss of dignities that loyalists suffered, and some paths toward reintegration. Their appointment as federal attorneys helped make the government conversant in the common law, British statutes, and the law of nations, which in turn supported the Federalist goal of reintegrating the United States into the Atlantic World: achieving, in other words, national dignity.

Incorporation of the Law of Nations During the American Revolution—The Case of the San Antonio

1977 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry J. Bourguignon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Law ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
San Antonio ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Law ◽  
Anglo American

In an article published in this Journal in 1932, Professor Edwin Dickinson pointed out that the Supreme Court, in the first thirty years of its existence, dealt with 82 cases which raised questions of international law. The Court and counsel before it repeatedly cited the familiar writers on the law of nations: Grotius, Pufendorf, Bynkershoek, Burlamaqui, Rutherforth, and Vattel. As Dickinson pointed out, “It is an ancient doctrine of the Anglo-American common law that the law of nations is incorporated in and in some sense forms part of the national law.” Largely through decisions based on the principles expressed by the classical writers, the law of nations was early incorporated as part of the law of the United States.

The Complete American Constitutionalism, Volume One

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillman Howard ◽  
Graber Mark A ◽  
Whittington Keith E
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Revolution ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
The United States ◽  
Comprehensive Treatment ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Members Of Parliament ◽  
The Common ◽  
Constitutional Analysis

The Complete American Constitutionalism is designed to be the comprehensive treatment and source for debates on the American constitutional experience. It provides the analysis, resources, and materials both domestic and foreign readers must understand with regards to the practice of constitutionalism in the United States. This first volume of a projected eight volume set is entitled: Introduction and The Colonial Era. Here the authors provide the building blocks for constitutional analysis with an in-depth exploration of the constitutional conflicts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that formed the overall American constitutional experience. This is the first collection of materials that focuses on the crucial constitutional documents and debates that structured American constitutional understandings at the time of the American Revolution. It details the roots of the common law rights that Americans demanded be respected and the different interpretations of the English constitutional experience that increasingly divided Members of Parliament from American Revolutionaries.

Rediscovering Blackstone: wpływ Williama Blackstone’a na rozwój amerykańskiej nauki prawa w recepcji Alberta W. Alschulera

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-185
Author(s):  
Edyta Sokalska
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law School ◽  
Large Measure ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
American Law ◽  
The Common

The reception of common law in the United States was stimulated by a very popular and influential treatise Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone, published in the late 18th century. The work of Blackstone strengthened the continued reception of the common law from the American colonies into the constituent states. Because of the large measure of sovereignty of the states, common law had not exactly developed in the same way in every state. Despite the fact that a single common law was originally exported from England to America, a great variety of factors had led to the development of different common law rules in different states. Albert W. Alschuler from University of Chicago Law School is one of the contemporary American professors of law. The part of his works can be assumed as academic historical-legal narrations, especially those concerning Blackstone: Rediscovering Blackstone and Sir William Blackstone and the Shaping of American Law. Alschuler argues that Blackstone’s Commentaries inspired the evolution of American and British law. He introduces not only the profile of William Blackstone, but also examines to which extent the concepts of Blackstone have become the basis for the development of the American legal thought.

Law and Lawyers in the United States: The Common Law under Stress

1967 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 916
Author(s):  
Lord Denning ◽  
Erwin N. Griswold
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Common

Diálogos militares by Diego García de Palacio: The first American work on the law of nations

1992 ◽  
Vol 32 (290) ◽  
pp. 446-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Valencia Villa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Code Of Conduct ◽  
The United States ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
Simon Bolivar ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Government

Over the years the Americas have made significant contributions to the development of international humanitarian law. These include three nineteenth-century texts which constitute the earliest modern foundations of the law of armed conflict. The first is a treaty, signed on 26 November 1820 by the liberator Simón Bolívar and the peacemaker Pablo Morillo, which applied the rules of international conflict to a civil war. The second is a Spanish-American work entitled Principios de Derecho de Genres (Principles of the Law of Nations), which was published in 1832 by Andrés Bello. This work dealt systematically with the various aspects and consequences of war. The third is a legal instrument, signed on 24 April 1863 by United States President Abraham Lincoln, which codified the first body of law on internal conflict under the heading “Instructions for the Government of Armies of the United States in the Field” (General Orders No. 100). This instrument, known as the Lieber Code, was adopted as the new code of conduct for the armies of the Union during the American Civil War.

scholarly journals Book Review | George Will’s Conservatism and Democracy in Crisis

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
The United States ◽  
James Madison ◽  
American Government ◽  
Federalist Papers ◽  
The Federalist ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Federalist Papers

Americans typically view the United States as a democracy and are rightly proud of that. Of course, as those of a more precise nature, along with smug college students enrolled in introductory American government classes, are quick to point out, the United States is technically a republic. This is a bit too clever by half since James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, defined a republic the way most people think of a democracy—a system of representative government with elections: “[The]… difference between a Democracy and a Republic are, first the delegation of the Government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest.” What the framers thought of as democracy is today referred to as direct democracy, the belief that citizens should have more direct control over governing. The Athenian assembly was what the framers, Madison in particular, saw as the paragon of direct democracy—and as quite dangerous. While direct democracy has its champions, most Americans equate democracy with electing officials to do the business of government.

The Diffuse and Second Look Models of Judicial Review

2021 ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Steven Gow Calabresi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Second Look ◽  
The Common

This chapter examines the two models of judicial review that exist in the common law countries: the Diffuse Model and the Second Look Model. The Diffuse Model of judicial review originated in the United States and has spread to India, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, most of the countries of Latin America, the Scandinavian countries (except for the Netherlands), and Japan. It is premised on the idea that a country’s written constitution is its supreme law and that courts, when deciding cases or controversies that are properly before them, are thus duty-bound to follow the constitution, which is supreme law, and not a contrary statute whenever those two items conflict. Meanwhile, the essence of the Second Look Model of judicial review is that a Supreme or Constitutional Court ought to have the power of judicial review, subject to some kind of legislative power of override. This, it is said, best harmonizes the advantages of a written constitution and a bill of rights enforced by courts with the imperatives of democratic self-government. The underlying goal is to obtain the advantages of both constitutional government and also of democratic government.

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