This special issue of Studies in Law, Politics, and Society examines how law understands the past. Topics covered include the use of legal language to dehumanize slaves in the eighteenth century, the use of history by lawyers and judges to justify existing law or make changes to the law during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a study of deportation in the context of the evolution of civil rights and civil liberties in the United States, and a re-examination of the significance of the Supreme Court decision Muller v Oregon in 1908. Through its valuable contribution to our understanding of the relationship between law and history, this special issue is essential reading for legal scholars worldwide.
Chapter 1. Lawyers and Judges Utilizing History: A Multifaceted Tool for the Profession, 1840–1960;
Richard. F. Hamm Chapter 2: Law and Laundry: White Laundresses, Chinese Laundrymen, and the Origins of Muller v. Oregon; Emily A. Prifogle
Chapter 3. Mercy Redux: A Genealogy of Special Consideration of Indigenous Circumstances at Sentencing in Canada, from Indian Agents to Gladue and Ipeelee; Jacqueline Briggs
Chapter 4. Deportation in the Evolution of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties; Torrie Hester
Chapter 5. “Negroes Goods and Merchandizes”: Legal Language and the Dehumanization of Slaves in British Vice Admiralty Courts, 1700–1763; Lee B. Wilson
Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College, USA. He is also a Five College Fortieth Anniversary Professor. He has written, co-written, or edited more than fifty books in the fields of law and political science.