• We the people, the courthouse, and the constitution
• Only people were slaves
• Judicial review comes to Mississippi
• Mississippi bank wars
• Agricultural liens and related policy products of police power
• Advent of the regulatory state in Mississippi
• The police power of the state moves to the Piney Woods
• The coming of the common law in Mississippi
• The Governor and the Gold Coast
• Balancing industry with the constitution.

As a law student at Ole Miss, I was easily bored with the study of constitutional law. However, I did not have the benefit of studying under a gifted storyteller like Jimmy Robertson (he taught me federal procedure). This collection is a delightful romp through the highs and lows of Mississippi's struggle to govern itself. -John Grisham James L. Robertson focuses on folk encountering their constitutions and laws, in their courthouses and country stores, and in their daily lives, animating otherwise dry and inaccessible parchments. Robertson begins at statehood and continues through war and depression, well into the 1940s. He tells of slaves petitioning for freedom, populist sentiments fueling abnegation of the rule of law, the state's many schemes for enticing Yankee capital to lift a people from poverty, and its sometimes tragic, always colorful romance with whiskey after the demise of national Prohibition. Each story is sprinkled with fascinating but heretofore unearthed facts and circumstances. Robertson delves into the prejudices and practices of the times, local landscapes, and daily life and its dependence on our social compact. He offers the unique perspective of a judge, lawyer, scholar, and history buff, each role having tempered the lessons of the others. He focuses on a people, enriching encounters most know little about. Tales of understanding and humanity covering 130 years of heroes, rascals, and ordinary folk-with a bundle of engaging surprises-leave the reader pretty sure there's nothing quite like Mississippi history told by a sage observer.
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• Introduction
• A refractory and turbulent spirit : origins of Mississippi law
• Prescribed spheres : the legal path of slavery in Mississippi
• Flush times, Hard times : law, Jacksonism, and a cotton economy
• Legal legacies of war and reconstruction
• Thresholds of change : Mississippi law in the progressive and New Deal
• Moving past the crossroads : law and Mississippi's modern age.

In A Legal History of Mississippi: Race, Class, and the Struggle for Opportunity, legal scholar Joseph A. Ranney surveys the evolution of Mississippi's legal system and analyzes the ways in which that system has changed during the state's first two hundred years. Through close research, qualitative analysis, published court decisions, statutes, and law review articles, along with unusual secondary sources including nineteenth-century political and legal journals and journals of state constitutional conventions, Ranney indicates how Mississippi law has both shaped and reflected the state's character and, to a certain extent, how Mississippi's legal evolution compares with that of other states. Ranney examines the interaction of Mississippi law and society during key periods of change including the colonial and territorial eras and the early years of statehood when the legal foundations were laid; the evolution of slavery and slave law in Mississippi; the state's antebellum role as a leader of Jacksonian legal reform; the unfolding of the response to emancipation and wartime devastation during Reconstruction and the early Jim Crow era; Mississippi's legal evolution during the Progressive Era and its legal response to the crisis of the Great Depression; and the legal response to the civil rights revolution of the mid-twentieth century and the cultural revolutions of the late twentieth century. Histories of the law in other states are starting to appear, but there is none for Mississippi. Ranney fills that gap to help us better understand the state as it enters its third century.
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• Introduction
• The courts of the Mississippi territory, 1798-1817
• The Mississippi district court and its judges, 1818-1838
• States' rights and secession, 1839-1861
• War and congressional reconstruction, 1861-1870
• Klan violence and democratic domination, 1870-1891
• "$100 and thirty days": roping blind tigers, 1891-1918
• Enforcing the national prohibition act, 1919-1929
• A second federal judge for Mississippi, 1929-1949
• Defiant democrats, 1950-1961
• The road to compliance, 1961-1983
• The US courts of Mississippi
• Appendix one. US magistrate judges and bankcruptcy judges of Mississippi
• Appendix two. US attorneys of Mississippi
• Appendix three. US marshals of Mississippi
• Appendix four. Chief US probation officers of Mississippi.

This resource produces the first comprehensive history of the state's federal courts from the inception of the Mississippi Territory to the late twentieth century. Using archival material and legal documents, David M. Hargrove untangles the state's complex legal history, which includes slavery and secession, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Jim Crow and civil rights. In this important overview of the United States courts in Mississippi, Hargrove surveys the state's federal judiciary as it rules on key issues in Mississippi's past. He examines the court as it mediates conflict between regional and national agendas as well as protects constitutional rights of the state's African American citizens during the Reconstruction and civil rights eras. Hargrove traces how political activities of the state's federal judges affected public perceptions of an independent judiciary. Growing demands for federal judicial and law enforcement infrastructure, he notes, called for courthouses that remain iconic presences in the state's largest cities. Hargrove presents detailed judicial biographies of judges who shaped Mississippi's federal bench. Commissioned by the state's federal judiciary to write the book, he offers balanced perspectives on jurists whose reputations have suffered in hindsight, while illuminating the achievements of those who have received little public recognition.
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• Introduction: Searching for rights in Missouri history / Kenneth H. Winn
• Testing the limits of American justice : Indian trials in nineteenth-century Missouri / William E. Foley
• The frown of fortune : George Sibley, breach of promise, and Anglo-Francophone conflict on the Missouri frontier / Kenneth H. Winn
• The politics of slavery and Missouri's first elected Supreme Court : Dred Scott v. Emerson / Paul Finkelman
• The Judicial Ouster Ordinance of 1865 and radical reconstruction in Missouri / Dennis W. Belcher
• Disfranchised and degraded : Virginia L. Minor and the constitutional case for women's suffrage / Bonnie Stepenoff
• Missouri's long road to juvenile justice / Douglas E. Abrams
• The living example : Laurence M. Hyde and the Missouri nonpartisan court plan / Kenneth H. Winn
• Constitutional mollycoddling : how women won the right to serve as jurors in Missouri (but only if they wanted to) / Karen Anderson Winn
• Shaking the shackles : Curt Flood's challenge to baseball's reserve clause / James R. Devine
• In the midst of all such excitement : the Nancy Cruzan case / Edward "Chip" Robertson, Jr.

Until recently, many of Missouri's legal records were inaccessible and the existence of many influential, historic cases was unknown. The ten essays in this volume showcase Missouri as both maker and microcosm of American history. Some of the topics are famous: Dred Scott's slave freedom suit, Virginia Minor's women's suffrage case, Curt Flood's suit against professional baseball, and the Nancy Cruzan "right to die" case. Other essays cover court cases concerning the uneasy incorporation of ethnic and cultural populations into the United States; political loyalty tests during the Civil War; the alleviation of cruelty to poor and criminally institutionalized children; the barring of women to serve on juries decades after they could vote; and the creation of the "Missouri Court Plan, " a national model for judicial selection.
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• Introduction: An Old Valuables Chest
• Chapter One: Satan's Storm
• Chapter Two: The City upon a Hill
• Chapter Three: Drawing Battle Lines in Salem Village
• Chapter Four: The Afflicted
• Chapter Five: The Accused
• Chapter Six: The Judges
• Chapter Seven: An Inextinguishable Flame
• Chapter Eight: Salem End
• Chapter Nine: Witch City?
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Beginning in January 1692, Salem Village in colonial Massachusetts witnessed the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in early America. Villagers-mainly young women-suffered from unseen torments that caused them to writhe, shriek, and contort their bodies, complaining of pins stuck into their flesh and of being haunted by specters. Believing that they suffered from assaults by an invisible spirit, the community began a hunt to track down those responsible for the demonic work. The resulting Salem Witch Trials, culminating in the execution of 19 villagers, persists as one of the most mysterious and fascinating events in American history. Historians have speculated on a web of possible causes for the witchcraft that stated in Salem and spread across the region-religious crisis, ergot poisoning, an encephalitis outbreak, frontier war hysteria-but most agree that there was no single factor. Rather, as Emerson Baker illustrates in this seminal new work, Salem was "a perfect storm": a unique convergence of conditions and events that produced something extraordinary throughout New England in 1692 and the following years, and which has haunted us ever since. Baker shows how a range of factors in the Bay colony in the 1690s, including a new charter and government, a lethal frontier war, and religious and political conflicts, set the stage for the dramatic events in Salem. Engaging a range of perspectives, he looks at the key players in the outbreak-the accused witches and the people they allegedly bewitched, as well as the judges and government officials who prosecuted them-and wrestles with questions about why the Salem tragedy unfolded as it did, and why it has become an enduring legacy. Salem in 1692 was a critical moment for the fading Puritan government of Massachusetts Bay, whose attempts to suppress the story of the trials and erase them from memory only fueled the popular imagination. Baker argues that the trials marked a turning point in colonial history from Puritan communalism to Yankee independence, from faith in collective conscience to skepticism toward moral governance. A brilliantly told tale, A Storm of Witchcraft also puts Salem's storm into its broader context as a part of the ongoing narrative of American history and the history of the Atlantic World.
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• Introduction: An Old Valuables Chest
• Chapter One: Satan's Storm
• Chapter Two: The City upon a Hill
• Chapter Three: Drawing Battle Lines in Salem Village
• Chapter Four: The Afflicted
• Chapter Five: The Accused
• Chapter Six: The Judges
• Chapter Seven: An Inextinguishable Flame
• Chapter Eight: Salem End
• Chapter Nine: Witch City?
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Beginning in January 1692, Salem Village in colonial Massachusetts witnessed the largest and most lethal outbreak of witchcraft in early America. Villagers-mainly young women-suffered from unseen torments that caused them to writhe, shriek, and contort their bodies, complaining of pins stuck into their flesh and of being haunted by specters. Believing that they suffered from assaults by an invisible spirit, the community began a hunt to track down those responsible for the demonic work. The resulting Salem Witch Trials, culminating in the execution of 19 villagers, persists as one of the most mysterious and fascinating events in American history. Historians have speculated on a web of possible causes for the witchcraft that stated in Salem and spread across the region-religious crisis, ergot poisoning, an encephalitis outbreak, frontier war hysteria-but most agree that there was no single factor. Rather, as Emerson Baker illustrates in this seminal new work, Salem was "a perfect storm": a unique convergence of conditions and events that produced something extraordinary throughout New England in 1692 and the following years, and which has haunted us ever since. Baker shows how a range of factors in the Bay colony in the 1690s, including a new charter and government, a lethal frontier war, and religious and political conflicts, set the stage for the dramatic events in Salem. Engaging a range of perspectives, he looks at the key players in the outbreak-the accused witches and the people they allegedly bewitched, as well as the judges and government officials who prosecuted them-and wrestles with questions about why the Salem tragedy unfolded as it did, and why it has become an enduring legacy. Salem in 1692 was a critical moment for the fading Puritan government of Massachusetts Bay, whose attempts to suppress the story of the trials and erase them from memory only fueled the popular imagination. Baker argues that the trials marked a turning point in colonial history from Puritan communalism to Yankee independence, from faith in collective conscience to skepticism toward moral governance. A brilliantly told tale, A Storm of Witchcraft also puts Salem's storm into its broader context as a part of the ongoing narrative of American history and the history of the Atlantic World.
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• Table of Contents; Preface; PART ONE: Introductions; Rebecca Nurse; Bridget Bishop; Mary English; Ann Putnam Sr.; Tituba; Mary Warren; PART TWO;
• 1. January 1692;
• 2. February 1692;
• 3. Marc 1 to Mid-March 1692;
• 4. March 18 to 31, 1692;
• 5. April 1 to 19, 1692;
• 6. April 19 to 30, 1692;
• 7. May 1 to 12, 1692;
• 8. May 12 to 30, 1692;
• 9. June 1 to 9, 1692;
• 10. June 10 to 30, 1692;
• 11. July 1 to 18, 1692;
• 12. July 19 to 31, 1692;
• 13. August 1 to 11, 1692;
• 14. August 12 to 31, 1692;
• 15. September 1692;
• 16. October 1692;
• 17. November to December 1692;
• 18. January to May 1693; PART THREE: Afterword.

• Rebecca NurseBridget Bishop; Mary English; Ann Putnam Sr.; Tituba; Mary Warren; Coda & Acknowledgments; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Six Women of Salem is the first work to use the lives of a select number of representative women as a microcosm to illuminate the larger crisis of the Salem witch trials. By the end of the trials, beyond the twenty who were executed and the five who perished in prison, 207 individuals had been accused, 74 had been afflicted, " 32 had officially accused their fellow neighbours, and 255 ordinary people had been inexorably drawn into that ruinous and murderous vortex, and this doesn't include the religious, judicial, and governmental leaders. All this adds up to what the Rev. Cotton Mather called a desolation of names."The individuals involved are too often reduced to stock characters and stereotypes when accuracy is sacrificed to indignation. And although the flood of names and detail in the history of an extraordinary event like the Salem witch trials can swamp the individual lives involved, individuals still deserve to be remembered and, in remembering specific lives, modern readers can benefit from such historical intimacy. By examining the lives of six specific women, Marilynne Roach shows readers what it was like to be present throughout this horrific time and how it was impossible to live through it unchanged.
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• Rebecca Nurse ; Bridget Bishop ; Mary English ; Ann Putnam Sr. ; Tituba ; Mary Warren
• January 1692 -- February 1692 -- March 1 to mid-March 1692 -- March 18 to March 31, 1692 -- April 1 to 19, 1692 -- April 19 to 30, 1692 -- May 1 to 12, 1692 -- May 12 to 30 1692 -- June 1 to 9, 1692 -- June 10 to 30, 1692 -- July 1 to 18, 1692 -- July 19 to 31, 1692 -- August 1 to 11, 1692 -- August 12 to 31, 1692 -- September 1692 -- October 1692 -- November to December 1692 -- January to May 1693
• Rebecca Nurse ; Bridget Bishop ; Mary English ; Ann Putnam Sr. ; Tituba ; Mary Warren.

What was it like to be there and, if you were lucky, to live through it? In a this combination of narrative and historical research, the author, a Salem Witch Trial scholar brings the terrifying times to life while illuminating the lives of the accused, the accusers, and the afflicted.-- Back cover.

• "To preserve harmony among men"
• and women? : colonial Maryland society, women, and the law
• "They say I am a witch" : early Maryland and witchcraft
• "Would you have me confess that I killed a man?" : violent crimes
• "Nor a woman chaste" : sexual offenses
• Maryland women and property
• Conclusion : a "race of convicts"?

The settlers in early colonial Maryland had to form a new legal system while remaining in-sync with the contemporary laws of England. This book looks at how one group of settlers, women, negotiated their place in society via this new legal system. Drawing on the work of Lois Green Carr and Lorena Walsh, this book begins with an understanding that women had more rights in the earliest years of the colony than they did in mother England. They used this status, along with a changing legal system, to establish a place for themselves in the new society. How they did this is at the heart of this boo.

• Making the fairy tale
• The discovery that race politicizes due process
• How revolutionary was the Civil War?
• Privileges and immunities in the Supreme Court
• The jury cases
• Getting blacks on Mississippi juries.

• Making the fairy tale
• The discovery that race politicizes due process
• How revolutionary was the Civil War?
• Privileges and immunities in the Supreme Court
• The jury cases
• Getting blacks on Mississippi juries.

A fresh view of the legal arguments leading to the American Revolution, this book argues that rebellious acts called "lawless" mob action by British authorities were sanctioned by "whig law" in the eyes of the colonists. Professor Reid also holds that leading historians have been misled by taking both sides' forensic statements at face value. The focus is on three events. First was the Malcom Affair (1766), when a Boston merchant and his friends faced down a sheriff's party seeking smuggled goods, arguing that the search warrant was invalid. Second was a parade in Boston to celebrate the second anniversary (1768) of the repeal of the Stamp Act-an occasion when some revenue officials were hanged in effigy. Third was the Liberty "riot" (1768), when customs officers boarded John Hancock's ship and were carried off by a crowd including the aforementioned Malcom. Legal inquires into the three events were marked by hyperbole on both sides. Whigs depicted Crown officials as lawless trespassers serving a foreign tyrant. Tories painted the Sons of Liberty as lawless mobs of almost savage ferocity. Both sides, as the author shows, had extralegal motives: whigs to enlist supporters in the other colonies for the cause of independence; tories to bring British troops and warships to Massachusetts in support of the status quo. Both succeeded in their polemical aims, and both have gulled most historians.

• English law and Puritan society : the legal and social foundations of order, 1629/1640
• Real property litigation : the social and economic backgrounds of legal change
• Outsiders and subgroups : the coordinative functions of the court
• From communalism to litigation : the elevation of law and legal forms
• The court and the community : law in a postrevolutionary Puritan society
• Challenges to the law : the conflict of legal and extra legal methods of social control
• Law, magic, and disorder : the crisis of the Interregnum, 1684-1692
• Epilogue: A contentious and well-ordered people.

Distinguished by the critical value it assigns to law in Puritan society, this study describes precisely how the Massachusetts legal system differed from England's and how equity and an adapted common law became so useful to ordinary individuals. The author discovers that law gradually replaced religion and communalism as the source of social stability, and he gives a new interpretation to the witchcraft prosecutions of 1692.Originally published 1979.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.
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• Province charters, 1691 and
• 1726. Acts, passed 1692-1714
• II. Acts, 1715-1741
• III. Acts, 1742-1756
• IV. Acts, 1757-1768
• V. Acts, 1769-1780.--VI. Private acts, 1692-1780
• VII. Resolves, etc., 1692-1702
• VIII. Resolves, etc., 1703-1707
• IX. Resolves, etc., 1708-1720
• X. Resolves, etc. 1720-1726
• XI. Resolves, etc. 1726-1734
• XII. Resolves, etc., 1734-1741
• XIII. Resolves, etc., 1741-1746
• XIV. Resolves, etc., 1717-1753
• XV. Resolves, etc., 1753-1756
• XVI. Resolves, etc., 1757-1760
• XVII. Resolves, etc. 1761-1764
• XVIII. Resolves, etc., 1765-1774
• XIX. Resolves, etc., 1775-1776
• XX. Resolves, etc. 1777-1778
• XXI. Resolves, etc., 1779-1780, and town chapters, 1692-1714, relating to the establishment of towns, precincts and parishes, determining territorial boundaries and granting lands, given by titles only in volumes VII, VIII, IX; originally planned to be printed in a separate volume.

"This edition ... was partly prepared under chapter 43 of the Resolves of the General court for the year 1865 ... The commissioners appointed under this resolve were John H. Clifford, Ellis Ames, and Abner C. Goodell."--Pref., v. 1, signed: Ellis Ames Abner Cheney Goodell.
"The publication of the Province laws of Massachusetts, stopped in the year 1896, was taken up again, under new legislation, in ... 1900. Mr. Goodell, the former editor, having declined reappointment, Melville Madison Bigelow, esq., was appointed editor."--Pref., v. 9.
Reproduction of the original from the Massachusetts State Historical Society.

Resolve of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, May 5, 1777, calling for the election of a general assembly to choose and form "a new Constitution of government." In this same resolution the House directed that its resolution be printed "in Hand-bills, one of which to be transmitted to the Selectmen of each Town, or the Committee of each Plantation."

1685 Book of the General Laws of New Plymouth Colony, collected from the records of the General Court, and revised with some additions. Included were a preface, margin notes, and a table which delineated the subjects within each of the sixteen chapters. Of note, the sections on Indians in the jurisdiction were forbidden to "powwow" or to perform devil or false god worship.