Search results for ""author peter charles hoffer""

In Seward's Law, Peter Charles Hoffer argues that William H. Seward's legal practice in Auburn, New York, informed his theory of relational rights—a theory that demonstrated how the country could end slavery and establish a practical form of justice. This theory, Hoffer demonstrates, had ties to Seward's career as a country lawyer. Despite his rise to prominence, and indeed preeminence, as a US secretary of state, Seward's country-lawyer mentality endured throughout his life, as evinced in his personal attitudes and professional conduct. Relational rights, identified and termed here for the first time by Hoffer, are communal and reciprocal, what everyone owed to every other member of their community. Such rights are at the center of a jurisprudential outlook that arises directly from living in a village. Though Seward was limited by the Victorian mores and the racialist presumptions of his day, the concept of relational rights that animated him was the natural antithesis to the theories and practices of slavery. In the legal regime underpinning the institution, masters owed nothing to their bondmen and women, while those enslaved unconditionally owed life and labor to their masters. The irrepressible conflict was, for Seward, jurisprudential as well as moral and political. Hoffer's leading assumption in Seward's Law is that a lifetime spent as a lawyer influences how a person responds to everyday challenges. Seward remained a country lawyer at heart, and that fact defined the course of his political career.

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The civil rights era was a time of pervasive change in American political and social life. Among the decisive forces driving change were lawyers, who wielded the power of law to resolve competing concepts of order and equality and, in the end, to hold out the promise of a new and better nation. The Search for Justice is a look the role of the lawyers throughout the period, focusing on one of the central issues of the time: school segregation. The most notable participants to address this issue were the public interest lawyers of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, whose counselors brought lawsuits and carried out appeals in state and federal courts over the course of twenty years. But also playing a part in the story were members of the bar who defended Jim Crow laws explicitly or implicitly and, in some cases, also served in state or federal government; lawyers who sat on state and federal benches and heard civil rights cases; and, finally, law professors who analyzed the reasoning of the courts in classrooms and public forums removed from the fray. With rich, copiously researched detail, Hoffer takes readers through the interactions of these groups, setting their activities not only in the context of the civil rights movement but also of their full political and legal legacies, including the growth of corporate private legal practice after World War II and the expansion of the role of law professors in public discourse, particularly with the New Deal. Seeing the civil rights era through the lens of law enables us to understand for the first time the many ways in which lawyers affected the course and outcome of the movement.

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Fake history is not a harmless mistake of fact or interpretation. It is a mistake that conceals prejudice; a mistake that discriminates against certain kinds of people; a mistake held despite a preponderance of evidence; a mistake that harms us. In the following pages, I liken fake history to the Zombies we see in mass media, for the fake fact, like the fictional Zombie, lives by turning real events and people into monstrous perversions of fact and interpretation. Its pervasiveness reveals that prejudice remains its chief appeal to those who believe it. Its effect is insidious, because we cannot or will not destroy these mischievous lies. Zombie history is almost impossible to kill. Some Zombie history was and is political. A genre of what Hannah Arendt called “organized lying” about the past. Its makers designed the Zombie to create a basis in the false past for particular discriminatory policies. Other history Zombies are cultural. They encapsulate and empower prejudice and stereotyping. Still other popular history Zombies do not look disfigured, but like Zombies walk among us without our realizing how devastating their impact can be. Whatever their purpose, whatever the venue in which they appear, history Zombies undermine the very foundations of disinterested study of the past.

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History helps us understand change, provides clues to our own identity, and hones our moral sense. But history is not a stand-alone discipline. Indeed, its own history is incomplete without recognition of its debt to its companions in the humane and social sciences. In Clio among the Muses, noted historiographer Peter Charles Hoffer relates the story of this remarkable collaboration. Hoffer traces history’s complicated partnership with its coordinate disciplines of religion, philosophy, the social sciences, literature, biography, policy studies, and law. As in ancient days, when Clio was preeminent among the other eight muses, so today, the author argues that history can and should claim pride of place in the study of past human action and thought. Intimate and irreverent at times, Clio among the Muses synthesizes a remarkable array of information. Clear and concise in its review of the companionship between history and its coordinate disciplines, fair-minded in its assessment of the contributions of history to other disciplines and these disciplines' contributions to history, Clio among the Muses will capture the attention of everyone who cares about the study of history. For as the author demonstrates, the study of history is something unique, ennobling, and necessary. One can live without religion, philosophy and the rest. One cannot exist without history. Rigorously documented throughout, the book offers a unique perspective on the craft of history.

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An essential, rigorous, and lively introduction to the beginnings of American law.How did American colonists transform British law into their own? What were the colonies' first legal institutions, and who served in them? And why did the early Americans develop a passion for litigation that continues to this day? In Law and People in Colonial America, Peter Charles Hoffer tells the story of early American law from its beginnings on the British mainland to its maturation during the crisis of the American Revolution. For the men and women of colonial America, Hoffer explains, law was a pervasive influence in everyday life. Because it was their law, the colonists continually adapted it to fit changing circumstances. They also developed a sense of legalism that influenced virtually all social, economic, and political relationships. This sense of intimacy with the law, Hoffer argues, assumed a transforming power in times of crisis. In the midst of a war for independence, American revolutionaries used their intimacy with the law to explain how their rebellion could be lawful, while legislators wrote republican constitutions that would endure for centuries.Today the role of law in American life is more pervasive than ever. And because our system of law involves a continuing dialogue between past and present, interpreting the meaning of precedent and of past legislation, the study of legal history is a vital part of every citizen's basic education. Taking advantage of rich new scholarship that goes beyond traditional approaches to view slavery as a fundamental cultural and social institution as well as an economic one, this second edition includes an extensive, entirely new chapter on colonial and revolutionary-era slave law. Law and People in Colonial America is a lively introduction to early American law. It makes for essential reading.

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Before colonial Americans could declare independence, they had to undergo a change of heart. Beyond a desire to rebel against British mercantile and fiscal policies, they had to believe that they could stand up to the fully armed British soldier. Prelude to Revolution uncovers one story of how the Americans found that confidence. On April 19, 1775, British raids on Lexington Green and Concord Bridge made history, but it was an episode nearly two months earlier in Salem, Massachusetts, that set the stage for the hostilities. Peter Charles Hoffer has discovered records and newspaper accounts of a British gunpowder raid on Salem. Seeking powder and cannon hidden in the town, a regiment of British Regulars were foiled by quick-witted patriots who carried off the ordnance and then openly taunted the Regulars. The prudence of British commanding officer Alexander Leslie and the persistence of the patriot leaders turned a standoff into a bloodless triumph for the colonists. What might have been a violent confrontation turned into a local victory, and the patriots gloated as news spread of "Leslie's Retreat." When British troops marched on Lexington and Concord on that pivotal day in April, Hoffer explains, each side had drawn diametrically opposed lessons from the Salem raid. It emboldened the rebels to stand fast and infuriated the British, who vowed never again to back down. After relating these battles in vivid detail, Hoffer provides a teachable problem in historic memory by asking why we celebrate Lexington and Concord but not Salem and why New Englanders recalled the events at Salem but then forgot their significance. Praise for the work of Peter Charles Hoffer "This book more than succeeds in achieving its goal of helping students understand and appreciate the cultural and intellectual environment of the Anglophone world." (New England Quarterly, reviewing When Benjamin Franklin Met the Reverend Whitefield). "A synthetic essay of considerable grace and scope...An excellent overview of the field." (Journal of Legal History, reviewing Law and People in Colonial America).

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The Brave New World covers the span of early American history, from 30,000 years before Europeans ever landed on North American shores to creation of the new nation. With its exploration of the places and peoples of early America, this comprehensive, lively narrative brings together the most recent scholarship on the colonial and revolutionary eras, Native Americans, slavery, politics, war, and the daily lives of ordinary people. The revised, enlarged edition includes a new chapter carrying the story through the American Revolution, the War for Independence, and the creation of the Confederation. Additional material on the frontier, the Southwest and the Caribbean, the slave trade, religion, science and technology, and ecology broadens the text, and maps drawn especially for this edition will enable readers to follow the story more closely. The bibliographical essay, one of the most admired features of the first edition, has been expanded and brought up to date. Peter Charles Hoffer combines the Atlantic Rim scholarship with a Continental perspective, illuminating early America from all angles-from its first settlers to the Spanish Century, from African slavery to the Salem witchcraft cases, from prayer and drinking practices to the development of complex economies, from the colonies' fight for freedom to an infant nation's struggle for political and economic legitimacy. Wide-ranging in scope, inclusive in content, the revised edition of The Brave New World continues to provide professors, students, and historians with an engaging and accessible history of early North America.

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Passed by the House of Representatives at the start of the 1836 session, the gag rule rejected all petitions against slavery, effectively forbidding Congress from addressing the antislavery issue until it was rescinded in late 1844. In the Senate, a similar rule lasted until 1850. Strongly supported by all southern and some northern Democratic congressmen, the gag rule became a proxy defense of slavery's morality and economic value in the face of growing pro-abolition sentiment. In John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule, 1835-1850, Peter Charles Hoffer transports readers to Washington, DC, in the period before the Civil War to contextualize the heated debates surrounding the rule. At first, Hoffer explains, only a few members of Congress objected to the rule. These antislavery representatives argued strongly for the reception and reading of incoming abolitionist petitions. When they encountered an almost uniformly hostile audience, however, John Quincy Adams took a different tack. He saw the effort to gag the petitioners as a violation of their constitutional rights. Adams's campaign to lift the gag rule, joined each year by more and more northern members of Congress, revealed how the slavery issue promoted a virulent sectionalism and ultimately played a part in southern secession and the Civil War. A lively narrative intended for history classrooms and anyone interested in abolitionism, slavery, Congress, and the coming of the Civil War, John Quincy Adams and the Gag Rule, 1835-1850, vividly portrays the importance of the political machinations and debates that colored the age.

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In the 1740s, two quite different developments revolutionized Anglo-American life and thought-the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening. This book takes an encounter between the paragons of each movement-the printer and entrepreneur Benjamin Franklin and the British-born revivalist George Whitefield-as an opportunity to explore the meaning of the beginnings of modern science and rationality on one hand and evangelical religious enthusiasm on the other. There are people who both represent the times in which they live and change them for the better. Franklin and Whitefield were two such men. The morning that they met, they formed a long and lucrative partnership: Whitefield provided copies of his journals and sermons, Franklin published them. So began one of the most unique, mutually profitable, and influential friendships in early American history. By focusing this study on Franklin and Whitefield, Peter Charles Hoffer defines with great precision the importance of the Anglo-American Atlantic World of the eighteenth century in American history. With a swift and persuasive narrative, Hoffer introduces readers to the respective life story of each man, examines in engaging detail the central themes of their early writings, and concludes with a description of the last years of their collaboration. Franklin's and Whitefield's intellectual contributions reach into our own time, making Hoffer's readable and enjoyable account of these extraordinary men and their extraordinary friendship relevant today. Also in the Witness to History series The Huron-Wendat Feast of the Dead: Indian-European Encounters in Early North America by Erik R. Seeman King Philip's War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty by Daniel R. Mandell The Caning of Charles Sumner: Honor, Idealism, and the Origins of the Civil War by Williamjames Hull Hoffer Bloodshed at Little Bighorn: Sitting Bull, Custer, and the Destinies of Nations by Tim Lehman

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Hoffer argues for a new methodological philosophy of history that mitigates fallibility and paradox How do we know what happened in the past? We cannot go back, and no amount of historical data can enable us to understand with absolute certainty what life was like “then.” It is easy to demolish the very idea of historical knowing, but it is impossible to demolish the importance of historical knowing. In an age of cable television pundits and anonymous bloggers dueling over history, the value of owning history increases at the same time as our confidence in history as a way of knowing crumbles. Historical knowledge thus presents a paradox—the more it is required, the less reliable it has become. To reconcile this paradox—that history is impossible but necessary—Peter Charles Hoffer proposes a practical, workable philosophy of history for our times, one that is robust and realistic, and that speaks to anyone who reads, writes and teaches history. Covering a sweeping range of philosophies (from ancient history to game theory), methodological approaches to writing history, and the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies of argument, Hoffer constructs a philosophy of history that is reasonable, free of fallacy, and supported by appropriate evidence that is itself tenable.

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In this brisk, engaging exploration of 19th-century radical reformer and abolitionist Wendell Phillips, Peter Charles Hoffer makes the case that Phillips deserves credit as the nation's first public interest lawyer, someone who led the antebellum crusade against slavery and championed First Amendment rights and equality for all Americans.

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A history of the humble footnote and its impact on the highest court in the landIn May 2022, a seismic legal event occurred as the draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health was leaked. The majority aimed to eliminate constitutional protection for abortion. Amidst the fervor, an unnoticed detail emerged: over 140 footnotes accompanied the majority opinion and dissent. These unassuming annotations held immense significance, unveiling justices' beliefs about the Constitution's essence, highlighting their controversial reasoning, and laying bare the vastly different interpretations of the role of Supreme Court Justice.The Supreme Court Footnote offers a study of the evolution of footnotes in US Supreme Court opinions and how they add to our constitutional understanding. Through a comprehensive analysis, Peter Charles Hoffer argues that as justices alter the course of history via their decisions, they import their own understandings of it

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Hoffer argues for a new methodological philosophy of history that mitigates fallibility and paradox How do we know what happened in the past? We cannot go back, and no amount of historical data can enable us to understand with absolute certainty what life was like “then.” It is easy to demolish the very idea of historical knowing, but it is impossible to demolish the importance of historical knowing. In an age of cable television pundits and anonymous bloggers dueling over history, the value of owning history increases at the same time as our confidence in history as a way of knowing crumbles. Historical knowledge thus presents a paradox—the more it is required, the less reliable it has become. To reconcile this paradox—that history is impossible but necessary—Peter Charles Hoffer proposes a practical, workable philosophy of history for our times, one that is robust and realistic, and that speaks to anyone who reads, writes and teaches history. Covering a sweeping range of philosophies (from ancient history to game theory), methodological approaches to writing history, and the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies of argument, Hoffer constructs a philosophy of history that is reasonable, free of fallacy, and supported by appropriate evidence that is itself tenable.

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The Clamor of Lawyers explores a series of extended public pronouncements that British North American colonial lawyers crafted between 1761 and 1776. Most, though not all, were composed outside of the courtroom and detached from on-going litigation. While they have been studied as political theory, these writings and speeches are rarely viewed as the work of active lawyers, despite the fact that key protagonists in the story of American independence were members of the bar with extensive practices. The American Revolution was, in fact, a lawyers’ revolution. Peter Charles Hoffer and Williamjames Hull Hoffer broaden our understanding of the role that lawyers played in framing and resolving the British imperial crisis. The revolutionary lawyers, including John Adams’s idol James Otis, Jr., Pennsylvania’s John Dickinson, and Virginians Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, along with Adams and others, deployed the skills of their profession to further the public welfare in challenging times. They were the framers of the American Revolution and the governments that followed. Loyalist lawyers and lawyers for the crown also participated in this public discourse, but because they lost out in the end, their arguments are often slighted or ignored in popular accounts. This division within the colonial legal profession is central to understanding the American Republic that resulted from the Revolution.

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Americans have long been identified as a people of law and lawyers with an addiction to lawsuits. This national characteristic became so prevalent in late twentieth-century America that some legal authorities dubbed the pattern a “litigation crisis.” In Litigation Nation: A History of Litigation in America, Peter C. Hoffer charts the history of civil litigation from the seventeenth century to the present, using key cases that illustrate the central theme in civil litigation during different periods of U.S. history and enable readers to explore and understand key questions in American life and culture. Hoffer’s concise and accessible treatment to this history will appeal to general audiences as it examines both historical and contemporary questions, debates, and litigation concerning gender, discrimination, harassment, and workplace culture.

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