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In America, we are eager to claim ownership: our homes, our ideas, our organs, even our own celebrity. But beneath our nation’s proprietary longing looms a troublesome question: what does it mean to own something? More simply: what is property? The question is at the heart of many contemporary controversies, including disputes over who owns everything from genetic material to indigenous culture to music and film on the Internet. To decide if and when genes or culture or digits are a kind of property that can be possessed, we must grapple with the nature of property itself. How does it originate? What purposes does it serve? Is it a natural right or one created by law? Accessible and mercifully free of legal jargon, American Property reveals the perpetual challenge of answering these questions, as new forms of property have emerged in response to technological and cultural change, and as ideas about the appropriate scope of government regulation have shifted. This first comprehensive history of property in the United States is a masterly guided tour through a contested human institution that touches all aspects of our lives and desires. Stuart Banner shows that property exists to serve a broad set of purposes, constantly in flux, that render the idea of property itself inconstant. Despite our ideals of ownership, property has always been a means toward other ends. What property signifies and what property is, we come to see, has consistently changed to match the world we want to acquire.
The Guardian of Every Other Right chronicles the pivotal role of property rights in fashioning the American constitutional order from the colonial era to the current controversies over eminent domain and land use controls. The book emphasizes the interplay of law, ideology, politics, and economic change in shaping constitutional thought and provides a historical perspective on the contemporary debate about property rights. Since publication of the original edition of this work, both academic and popular interest in the constitutional rights of property owners has markedly increased. Now in its third edition, this text has been revised to incorporate a full treatment of important judicial decisions, notable legislation, and scholarship since the second edition appeared in 1997. In particular, Ely provides helpful background and context for understanding the controversial Kelo decision relating to the exercise of eminent domain power for "public use." Covering the entire history of property rights in the United States, this new edition continues to fill a major gap in the literature of constitutional history and is an ideal text for students of legal and constitutional history.
Women and the Law of Property in Early America
How American colonists laid the foundations of American capitalism with an economy built on credit Even before the United States became a country, laws prioritizing access to credit set colonial America apart from the rest of the world. Credit Nation examines how the drive to expand credit shaped property laws and legal institutions in the colonial and founding eras of the republic. In this major new history of early America, Claire Priest describes how the British Parliament departed from the customary ways that English law protected land and inheritance, enacting laws for the colonies that privileged creditors by defining land and slaves as commodities available to satisfy debts. Colonial governments, in turn, created local legal institutions that enabled people to further leverage their assets to obtain credit. Priest shows how loans backed with slaves as property fueled slavery from the colonial era through the Civil War, and that increased access to credit was key to the explosive growth of capitalism in nineteenth-century America. Credit Nation presents a new vision of American economic history, one where credit markets and liquidity were prioritized from the outset, where property rights and slaves became commodities for creditors' claims, and where legal institutions played a critical role in the Stamp Act crisis and other political episodes of the founding period.
After the American Civil War, agricultural reformers in the South called for an end to unrestricted grazing of livestock on unfenced land. They advocated the stock law, which required livestock owners to fence in their animals, arguing that the existing system (in which farmers built protective fences around crops) was outdated and inhibited economic growth. The reformers steadily won their battles, and by the end of the century the range was on the way to being closed. In this original study, Kantor uses economic analysis to show that, contrary to traditional historical interpretation, this conflict was centered on anticipated benefits from fencing livestock rather than on class, cultural, or ideological differences. Kantor proves that the stock law brought economic benefits; at the same time, he analyzes why the law's adoption was hindered in many areas where it would have increased wealth. This argument illuminates the dynamics of real-world institutional change, where transactions are often costly and where some inefficient institutions persist while others give way to economic growth.
While slavery is often at the heart of debates over the causes of the Civil War, historians are not agreed on precisely what aspect of slavery-with its various social, economic, political, cultural, and moral ramifications-gave rise to the sectional rift.
A concise examination of the central role of legal decisions in shaping key social issues explores topics ranging from Native American affairs and slavery to business and home life as well as how criminal and civil offenses have been addressed in positive and negative ways. Original.
In this concise history of expropriation of land for the common good in Europe and North America from medieval times to 1800, Susan Reynolds contextualizes the history of an important legal doctrine regarding the relationship between government and the in
A multidisciplinary overview This new series gathers a broad selection of the best scholarly literature dealing with property rights in American constitutional history. The initial three volumes deal with the historical aspects of property ownership, many of which are relevant to contemporary developments. Another volume is devoted to the contract clause, which was the heart of a great deal of constitutional litigation. Two volumes deal directly and at length with current issues, such as regulatory takings. The authors come from a variety of disciplines, including history, law, and political science, bringing a multidisciplinary approach to the debate, and providing an excellent background for understanding contemporary issues. A versatile classroom and student research resource Because it gathers so many important articles from law reviews, academic journals, and books, including classic essays by prominent 19th-century authorities, this collection is a valuable resource for lawschools. But its thorough exploration of a vital issue that has been the concern of legislators, courts, and citizens since the founding of the republic also makes it useful in American History classes. Professors will appreciate the collection because it gives them access to a concentration of material for classroom use and it's a user-friendly way to introduce students to a variety of opinions and, diversity of sources that can get them started on doing their own research. Students will appreciate the many articles as a veritable gold mine of information. Also available individually by volume: 1. Property Rights in the Colonial Era and Early Republic (0-8153-2683-1) 432 pages 2. Property Rights in the Age of Enterprise (0-81532684-X) 440 pages 3. Reform and Regulation of Property Rights (0-8153-2685-8) 416 pages 4. The Contract Clause in American History (0-8153-2686-6) 440 pages 5. Contemporary Property Rights Issues (0-8153-26874) 432 pages 6. Main Themes in the DebateOver Property Rights (0-8153-2688-2) 425 pages