- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Preface
- Introduction
-
Part One -
I. 1790: Secretary Jefferson and the Foreign Affairs Power -
II. 1791: The National Bank and the Point of Interpretation -
III. 1793: The Supreme Court and the Metaphysics of Sovereignty -
IV. 1794: Kamper v. Hawkins and the Role of the Judiciary -
V. 1798 (1): Justice Paterson and the Missing Fundamental Principle -
Part Two -
VI. 1798 (2): How to Think about the Sedition Act -
VII. 1800: Marshall and the Role of the Political Branches -
VIII. 1802: How Not to Think about the Judiciary Repeal Act -
IX. 1804: Turpin v. Locket and the Place of Religion -
X. 1806: Hudgins v. Wright and the Place of Slavery -
XI. 1808–1809: A Forgotten Crossroads in Constitutional History -
Part Three -
XII. 1817: President Madison Vetoes His Own Bill -
XIII. 1818: The Congress Thinks about Internal Improvements -
XIV. 1821: The Attorney General and the Rule of Law -
XV. 1829: Writing State v. Mann -
Part Four -
XVI. 1859: The Supreme Court and the Metaphysics of Supremacy -
XVII. 1862: Four Attorneys General and the Meaning of Citizenship -
XVIII. 1873: Slaughterhouse Revisited -
XIX. 1904: Clay May, the Railroad, and Justice Holmes -
XX. 1927: Justice Brandeis and the Final End of the State -
XXI. 1944: Constitutional Injustice -
Part Five -
XXII. 2002: Common Ground after Two Centuries - Conclusion
- Index
1862: Four Attorneys General and the Meaning of Citizenship
1862: Four Attorneys General and the Meaning of Citizenship
- Chapter:
- XVII. 1862: Four Attorneys General and the Meaning of Citizenship
- Source:
- A Community Built on Words
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
The issue of whether African Americans were to be counted as members of the body politic that Judge Ruffin raised suggestively through his language in State v. Mann was squarely addressed by his contemporaries in a variety of settings, not least in a series of opinions by federal attorneys general stretching from eight years before Mann until a month before the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1821, Attorney General William Wirt received a request for advice from the secretary of the treasury, William Crawford, acting on behalf of the collector of customs at Norfolk, Virginia. Federal law mandated that the master of an American-flag vessel be a “citizen of the United States,” and Crawford's inquiry was whether a free African American resident in Virginia satisfied this requirement. Wirt began his opinion by assuming that Congress had intended its statutory use of the expression to carry the same meaning as in the Constitution.
Keywords: African Americans, Judge Ruffin, State v. Mann, federal attorneys general, William Wirt, federal law
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Preface
- Introduction
-
Part One -
I. 1790: Secretary Jefferson and the Foreign Affairs Power -
II. 1791: The National Bank and the Point of Interpretation -
III. 1793: The Supreme Court and the Metaphysics of Sovereignty -
IV. 1794: Kamper v. Hawkins and the Role of the Judiciary -
V. 1798 (1): Justice Paterson and the Missing Fundamental Principle -
Part Two -
VI. 1798 (2): How to Think about the Sedition Act -
VII. 1800: Marshall and the Role of the Political Branches -
VIII. 1802: How Not to Think about the Judiciary Repeal Act -
IX. 1804: Turpin v. Locket and the Place of Religion -
X. 1806: Hudgins v. Wright and the Place of Slavery -
XI. 1808–1809: A Forgotten Crossroads in Constitutional History -
Part Three -
XII. 1817: President Madison Vetoes His Own Bill -
XIII. 1818: The Congress Thinks about Internal Improvements -
XIV. 1821: The Attorney General and the Rule of Law -
XV. 1829: Writing State v. Mann -
Part Four -
XVI. 1859: The Supreme Court and the Metaphysics of Supremacy -
XVII. 1862: Four Attorneys General and the Meaning of Citizenship -
XVIII. 1873: Slaughterhouse Revisited -
XIX. 1904: Clay May, the Railroad, and Justice Holmes -
XX. 1927: Justice Brandeis and the Final End of the State -
XXI. 1944: Constitutional Injustice -
Part Five -
XXII. 2002: Common Ground after Two Centuries - Conclusion
- Index
