United States Code


Book Description

"The United States Code is the official codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States of America. The Code was first published in 1926, and a new edition of the code has been published every six years since 1934. The 2012 edition of the Code incorporates laws enacted through the One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, the last of which was signed by the President on January 15, 2013. It does not include laws of the One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, enacted between January 2, 2013, the date it convened, and January 15, 2013. By statutory authority this edition may be cited "U.S.C. 2012 ed." As adopted in 1926, the Code established prima facie the general and permanent laws of the United States. The underlying statutes reprinted in the Code remained in effect and controlled over the Code in case of any discrepancy. In 1947, Congress began enacting individual titles of the Code into positive law. When a title is enacted into positive law, the underlying statutes are repealed and the title then becomes legal evidence of the law. Currently, 26 of the 51 titles in the Code have been so enacted. These are identified in the table of titles near the beginning of each volume. The Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives continues to prepare legislation pursuant to 2 U.S.C. 285b to enact the remainder of the Code, on a title-by-title basis, into positive law. The 2012 edition of the Code was prepared and published under the supervision of Ralph V. Seep, Law Revision Counsel. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the contributions by all who helped in this work, particularly the staffs of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and the Government Printing Office"--Preface.




The Dorr War


Book Description

The remarkable story of the bloody conflict that erupted in 1841 Rhode Island over allowing non-property owners to vote. The portly Rhode Island aristocrat was hardly the image of the people’s champion—but in 1841, Thomas Dorr became just that. At a time when only white male landowners could vote, the idealistic Dorr envisioned a more democratic state. In October of that year, the People’s Convention ratified a new constitution that extended voting rights to those without land, and Dorr was named governor. That act would spark a small civil war, and violence erupted as the people of the state stood sharply divided in a conflict that reached the president and United States Supreme Court. Author Rory Raven charts the tumultuous and ultimately tragic history of a man and a movement that were too far ahead of their time.




Treason by Words


Book Description

Under the Tudor monarchy, English law expanded to include the category of "treason by words." Rebecca Lemon investigates this remarkable phrase both as a legal charge and as a cultural event. English citizens, she shows, expressed competing notions of treason in opposition to the growing absolutism of the monarchy. Lemon explores the complex participation of texts by John Donne, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare in the legal and political controversies marking the Earl of Essex's 1601 rebellion and the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. Lemon suggests that the articulation of diverse ideas about treason within literary and polemical texts produced increasingly fractured conceptions of the crime of treason itself. Further, literary texts, in representing issues familiar from political polemic, helped to foster more free, less ideologically rigid, responses to the crisis of treason. As a result, such works of imagination bolstered an emerging discourse on subjects' rights. Treason by Words offers an original theory of the role of dissent and rebellion during a period of burgeoning sovereign power.




Treason on Trial


Book Description

In the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, federal officials captured, imprisoned, and indicted Jefferson Davis for treason. If found guilty, the former Confederate president faced execution for his role in levying war against the United States. Although the federal government pursued the charges for over four years, the case never went to trial. In this comprehensive analysis of the saga, Treason on Trial, Robert Icenhauer-Ramirez suggests that while national politics played a role in the trial’s direction, the actions of lesser-known individuals ultimately resulted in the failure to convict Davis. Early on, two primary factions argued against trying the case. Influential northerners dreaded the prospect of a public trial, fearing it would reopen the wounds of the war and make a martyr of Davis. Conversely, white southerners pointed to the treatment and prosecution of Davis as vindictive on the part of the federal government. Moreover, they maintained, the right to secede from the Union remained within the bounds of the law, effectively linking the treason charge against Davis with the constitutionality of secession. While Icenhauer-Ramirez agrees that politics played a role in the case, he suggests that focusing exclusively on that aspect obscures the importance of the participants. In the United States of America v. Jefferson Davis, preeminent lawyers represented both parties. According to Icenhauer-Ramirez, Lucius H. Chandler, the local prosecuting attorney, lacked the skill and temperament necessary to put the case on a footing that would lead to trial. In addition, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase had little desire to preside over the divisive case and intentionally stymied the prosecution’s efforts. The deft analysis in Treason on Trial illustrates how complications caused by Chandler and Chase led to a three-year delay and, eventually, to the dismissal of the case in 1868, when President Andrew Johnson granted blanket amnesty to those who participated in the armed rebellion.




Treason By The Book


Book Description

In 1728 a stranger handed a letter to Governor Yue calling on him to lead a rebellion against the Manchu rulers of China. Feigning agreement, he learnt the details of the plot and immediately informed the Emperor, Yongzheng. The ringleaders were captured with ease, forced to recant and, to the confusion and outrage of the public, spared. Drawing on an enormous wealth of documentary evidence - over a hundred and fifty secret documents between the Emperor and his agents are stored in Chinese archives - Jonathan Spence has recreated this revolt of the scholars in fascinating and chilling detail. It is a story of unwordly dreams of a better world and the facts of bureaucratic power, of the mind of an Emperor and of the uses of his mercy.




With Malice Toward Some


Book Description

With Malice toward Some: Treason and Loyalty in the Civil War Era




Treason


Book Description

Set against the framework of modern political concerns, Treason: Medieval and Early Modern Adultery, Betrayal, and Shame considers the various forms of treachery in a variety of sources, including literature, historical chronicles, and material culture creating a complex portrait of the development of this high crime.




Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800


Book Description

This book examines internal political conflicts in the British Empire within the legal framework of treason and sedition. The threat of treason and rebellion pervaded the British Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries; Britain's control of its territories was continually threatened by rebellion and war, both at home and in North America. Even after American independence, Britain and its former colony continued to be fearful that opposition and revolution might follow the French example, and both took legal measures to control both speech and political action. This study places these conflicts within a political and legal framework of the laws of treason and sedition as they developed in the British Atlantic. The treason laws originated in the reign of Edward III, and were adapted and modified in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were exported to the colonies, where they underwent both adaptation and elaboration in application in the slave societies as well as those dominated by free settlers. Relationships with natives and European rivals in the Americas affected the definitions of treason in practice, and the divided loyalties of the American revolutionary war added further problems of defining loyalty and treachery. Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800 offers a new study of treason and sedition in the period by placing them in a truly transatlantic perspective, making it a valuable study for those interested in the legal and political of Britain's empire and 18th-century revolutions.




The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages


Book Description

Professor Bellamy places the theory of treason in its political setting and analyses the part it played in the development of legal and political thought in this period. He pays particular attention to the Statute of Treason of 1352, an act with a notable effect on later constitutional history and which, in the opinion of Edward Coke, had a legal importance second only to that of Magna Carta. He traces the English law of treason to Roman and Germanic origins, and discusses the development of royal attitudes towards rebellion, the judicial procedures used to try and condemn suspected traitors, and the interaction of the law of treason and constitutional ideas.




The Trials of Allegiance


Book Description

Introduction -- Treason in colonial Pennsylvania -- Resistance and treason, 1765-1775 -- Treason against America, 1775-1776 -- From independence to invasion, 1776-1778 -- The winding path to the courthouse, 1778 -- The Philadelphia treason trials, 1778-1779 : forming the jury -- The Philadelphia treason trials, 1778-1779 : trial and deliberation -- Resentment and betrayal, 1779-1781 -- Peace, the constitution, and rebellion, 1781-1800 -- Conclusion.