Topic

Legal History

Posts

  • ArticleVol. 102 · Iss. 6

    Minor v. Happersett and the Repudiation of Universal Suffrage

    Nearly 150 years ago, Minor v. Happersett rejected a constitutional challenge to a Missouri law that excluded women from the electorate. Ratification of the…

  • ArticleVol. 102 · Iss. 6

    A “New” New Departure

    In the wake of enactment of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, women’s rights activists embarked on an exercise in popular constitutionalism known as “the…

  • Online2025

    Birthright Citizenship of Child Born to Enemy Alien Visitors

    This is the story of Mogridge v. United States, in which the United States asserted, and a multinational commission held, that a child born…

  • Online2025

    Why Charters?

    While charters are poorly designed for broad public transparency, they still provide benefits by functioning like a recording system that reduces investigation costs and…

  • ArticleVol. 102 · Iss. 5

    Prosecutorial Reform and The Myth of Individualized Enforcement

    A new wave of reformist prosecutors has risen to power promising to transform the criminal justice system from within, sparking fierce backlash from defenders…

  • ArticleVol. 102 · Iss. 5

    Judicial Imperialism: The Supreme Court’s Assault on Tribal Sovereignty and the Rule of Law

    The post-1970s Supreme Court has abandoned precedents supporting tribal self-governance and devised new theories to strip tribes of sovereign powers. The Supreme Court’s assault…

  • Online2024

    What’s Left of the Suspension Clause After Jones v. Hendrix?

    In 2000, Marcus DeAngelo Jones was convicted of two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm. As a convicted felon, Jones was prohibited from…

  • ArticleVol. 102 · Iss. 1

    The Original Meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment

    The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution enshrines Congress’s “power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived.” Challenges to…

  • ArticleVol. 101 · Iss. 5

    The Debt Limit

    Every couple of years, it seems, the debt limit shows up to wreak havoc in American law and public finance. By capping the face…

  • ArticleVol. 101 · Iss. 5

    Digital Rummaging

    The digital world encodes our lives with incriminating clues. How you travel, live, love, and shop are tracked through growing surveillance technologies. Police have…

  • ArticleVol. 101 · Iss. 4

    Second-Class Administrative Law: Lincoln v. Vigil’s Puzzling Presumption of Unreviewability

    Administrative law ordinarily presumes that someone hurt by “arbitrary and capricious” agency action may seek relief in federal court unless Congress says otherwise. Administrative…

  • ArticleVol. 101 · Iss. 3

    “Religion,” Before Darwin

    The First Amendment singles out “religion” for special treatment, but the boundaries of that concept have always been difficult to describe. Nevertheless, there is…