American Legal History

Columbia Law School, Fall 2005

Professor Eben Moglen

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9/08   Introductory lecture: Hastings and Jamestown

Beginnings

9/09   Lawes Divine, Morall & Martiall: the occupation of Virginia

• Reprint: Lawes Divine, Morall & Martiall

9/15   The Enterprise of Massachusetts: A Citty upon a Hill

• G.L. Haskins, Law and Authority in Early Massachusetts
• Reprint: Winthrop, A Modell of Christian Charitie
• Reprint: Massachusetts Lawes and Libertyes of 1648

9/16   New Amsterdam becomes New York: Merger of Law

9/22   Land and Labor: Virginian Law in the 17th Century

• Supp: E. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, pp. 108-180

9/23   Constitution and Empire to 1700

• Reprint: Massachusetts Bay Charter of 1628
• Reprint: Selections from Hall
• Reprint: An Act Declareing the Rights and Priviledges...
• Supp: D. Lovejoy, The Glorious Revolution in America, pp. 98-159

The Empire of 18th Century Law

9/29   Slavery in the 18th Century Law: Sowing the Wind

• Supp: E. Morgan, American Slavery..., pp. 295-387

9/30   Commercial and Maritime Law: Merchants and Mercantilism

• Reprint: From C. Andrews, Colonial Period of American History
• Reprint: From Records of Vice-Admiralty Court of Rhode Island
• Reprint: From New York City Mayor's Court Records

Occurrences at Philadelphia, and Elsewhere

10/06   Constitutional History of the American Revolution: Rights & Taxes

• Reprint: From Morison, Sources and Documents...

10/07   Legal Foundations of American Constitutionalism

• Reprint: From Notes on Debates...

Expounding a New Constitution

10/13   Legal Nationalism and Popular Sovereignty: Chisholm v. Georgia

• Reprint: Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793)

10/14   John Marshall's Constitution

• Reprint: Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)
• Reprint: M'Culloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819)
• Reprint: Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1 (1824)

National Expansion and the Legal Order

10/20   Jacksonianism, Codification, and the Frontier

• Reprint: From P. Miller, ed., The Legal Mind in America
• Reprint: Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. 1 (1842)
• Reprint: From Notebooks of Thomas Rodney

Myths and Legends of American Legal History

10/21   Reception and Americanization

• Supp: W. Nelson, Americanization of the Common Law, pp. 1-45, 67-116

10/27   "The Great Transformation” I: Horwitz' Instrumental Conception

• M. Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law

10/28   "The Great Transformation” II: Economic Development and Rules of Law

• J.W. Hurst, Law and the Conditions of Freedom

Reaping the Whirlwind

11/03   Slavery and the Conflict of Laws

• R. Cover, Justice Accused, chs. 1-11
• Reprint: Somerset v. Stewart, 1 Lofft 1, 98 E.R. 499 (K.B. 1772)
• Reprint: Kentucky v. Dennison, 65 U.S. 66 (1861)
• Reprint: Puerto Rico v. Branstad, 107 S.Ct. 2802 (1987)

11/04   The Incomplete Reconstruction of the Constitution

• Reprint: From Stampp, Era of Reconstruction

The Legal Economy of Industrialization

11/10   The Iron Horse: The Railroads Reshape the Law

11/11   The Iron Heel: Industrial Strife in the Courts

• A.M. Paul, Conservative Crisis and the Rule of Law, chs. 1-7
• Reprint: In re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895)

11/17   Law and the Spirit of Reform

• Moglen, Holmes's Legacy and the New Constitutional History, 108 Harv. L. Rev. 2027 (1995).
• Reprint: R. Hofstadter, “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?”

Makers of Modernity

11/18   Holmes and the Creation of Legal Pragmatism

• Reprint: Holmes, “Path of the Law”; From Holmes, The Common Law
• Reprint: The Western Maid, 257 U.S. 419 (1922)
• Reprint: Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927)

12/01   Brandeis

• Reprint: From L.D. Brandeis, Other People's Money
• Reprint: From L.D. Brandeis, The Curse of Bigness
• Reprint: From A.M. Bickel, The Unpublished Opinions of Mr. Justice Brandeis

The Great Transformation at Last

12/02   War, Dissent, and the Invention of the First Amendment

• Reprint: Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616 (1919)
• Reprint: Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927)

12/08   The New Deal, the Old Court, and the Administrative State

• Reprint: From W.E. Leuchtenburg, F.D.R. & the New Deal
• Reprint: From P.H. Irons, The New Deal Lawyers (1982)
• Reprint: Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)
• Reprint: Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46 (1947)
• Reprint: Minersville School Dist. v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940)
• Reprint: West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)
• Reprint: Railroad Comm'n v. Pullman Co., 312 U.S. 496 (1941)

12/09   Thurgood Marshall, the Road to Brown, and Beyond

• Reprint: From R. Kluger, Simple Justice
• Reprint: C.L. Black, Jr., “My World with Louis Armstrong”