Showing 9 of 9 Results

State of Oregon Law Library Legal Research Blog

decorative-image
10/24/2024
profile-icon Lynne Palombo

Witches and the pursuit of them were common in early modern Europe and the Americas. While witches are still prevalent in our culture today, they are often seen as a source of entertainment in movies, children's literature, and during Halloween celebrations. A timely topic for October is the historical relationship between witch trials and the law.

Witchcraft Acts
In the 1500s and 1600s, various laws were established across England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland to control magic and witchcraft. Among these, England's three primary witchcraft acts had the most impact on additional regulations and history.

The Witchcraft Act of 1542 (33 Hen. VIII c. 8) was the first to define witchcraft and to criminalize it as a felony punishable by death without clergy or sanctuary. The Act was repealed after the death of Henry VIII in 1547 (1 Edw. VI, c12) and was not replaced until five years into Elizabeth I's reign.

In 1562, an Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts (5 Eliz. 1. c. 16) reclassified witchcraft as a felony and shifted trials from church settings to secular courts. It also created penalties for first and second offenses that were less severe than death.

In 1604, The Witchcraft Act, officially titled "An Act Against Conjuration, Witchcraft, and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits" (2 Jas. I c. 12), expanded the Act of 1562 by increasing the scope of crimes and expanding the death penalty punishment.  

 

Witch Trials
Most of what we know about England’s historic witch trials comes from records of the assize courts. The Assizes, or Courts of Assize, served as the foundation for civil and felony criminal cases in English counties until 1971. 

The book Witch Hunting and Witch Trials: The Indictments for Witchcraft from the Records of 1373 Assizes Held for the Home Circuit, 1559-1736 A.D., offers legal insight and a general historical examination of this time period. Some noteworthy sections include the names of convicted witches, jury instructions, jail rolls, and charging details by date within each monarch's reign.

The book is part of the Notable Trials Collection at the State of Oregon Law Library. This collection is not limited to European trials; it also features notable American cases. Among the collection is The American State Trials, a 17-volume set that includes The Trials of Bridget Bishop and George Burroughs. Bishop was the first person sentenced to death during the Salem Witch Trials in colonial Massachusetts, while Burroughs was the only Puritan minister to be executed

Trials Collection
The law library's Notable Trials Collection includes significant historical trials from Britain and France, the Nuremberg war crime tribunals, and important American trials spanning from the colonial period to the 1980s. This collection addresses a wide range of topics, including treason, sedition, land use disputes, murder and assassination, court-martials, Cold War espionage, art and obscenity, as well as both judicial and presidential impeachments.
 

10/28/2020
Georgia Armitage

Just in time for Halloween, we peered into our well-maintained (not dusty or cobwebbed!) historic tomes searching for a creepy legal case. 

After long hours by the fluorescent light, we found the tale of ghost hunter Francis Smith in The Newgate Calendar. And appearing out of the darkness, we saw a legal question looming towards us: Is it murder to shoot a ghost? 

The Newgate Calendar

The Newgate Calendar details the crimes and trials of felons at Newgate Prison in 18th and 19th century London. But The Newgate Calendar isn’t your usual legal record. Instead, it’s a collection of scary stories hidden behind a thin façade of moral lessons – pages of graphic criminal escapades, followed by one sentence along the lines of “don’t do drugs, kids!”

The accounts were entertainment. They were first published as pamphlets, and later as an anthology. Wildly popular from 1750 to 1850, it was was one of the most common books in England. 

SOLL's copy of the Newgate Calendar

Several classic British novels – Oliver Twist, Catherine, and Paul Clifford – draw inspiration from The Newgate Calendar. These novels are called “Newgate Novels.”

A Ghostly Murder

In late 1803, the English town of Hammersmith had a ghost problem. Roaming the maze of streets, the Hammersmith Ghost petrified residents. A pregnant woman reportedly died after the ghost chased her and caught her. She fainted and died two days later. On another occasion, a wagon driver ran in terror after seeing the ghost, leaving behind his horses, wagon, and passengers. Thomas Groom, a brewer’s assistant described how:

“Some person came from behind a tomb-stone, which there are four square in the yard, behind me, and caught me fast by the throat with both hands, and held me fast; my fellow-servant, who was going on before, hearing me scuffling, asked what was the matter; then, whatever it was, gave me a twist round, and I saw nothing; I gave a bit of a push out with my fist, and felt something soft, like a great coat.”

Descriptions of the ghost varied, both from our modern idea of ghosts and from villager to villager. One local described the ghost as appearing, “[i]n white sometimes, and sometimes in the skin of a beast; a calf skin, or something of that sort.”

The Hammersmith Ghost from Kirby's Wonderful and Scientific Museum [1]

Soon, armed townspeople wandered the streets, hoping to catch the ghost. But according to The Newgate Calendar they were unsuccessful, because “there were so many by-lanes and paths leading to Hammersmith that he [the ghost] was always sure of being on that which was unguarded and every night played off his tricks, to the terror of the passengers.” 

Enter Francis Smith, an Officer of Excise. After a month or so of ghostly terrors, Smith decided to deal with the ghost himself.

Standing in a lane, Smith saw a white figure approaching him out of the darkness. The hedges lining the lane made it impossible to see more than 4 yards. Smith called out for the figure to stop, to tell him who they were! But the figure continued to advance on Smith without speaking. Smith called out again, but still the figure did not answer. At this point, fear overwhelmed Smith, and he opened fire. 

Thomas Milwood, a bricklayer, fell dead to the ground in the lane. He was dressed in white, the traditional dress of a bricklayer. His mother-in-law had asked him to wear a greatcoat, fearing others would mistake him for the ghost. On another evening, Milwood had frightened several people, all of whom thought he was the ghost.

Smith, realizing that he had shot a man, turned himself in to the watch. Later, before the Court at Old Bailey, Smith stated, “I did not know what I did; I solemnly declare my innocence, and that I had no intention to take away the life of the unfortunate deceased, or any other man whatever.”

At the trial, the jury first returned a verdict of manslaughter, but the judges refused to accept it. According to the Old Bailey trial records, one of the judges stated, “that they [the jury] must either find the prisoner guilty, or not guilty” of murder and that “the prerogative of shewing mercy lay in the Crown.”

The jury convicted Smith of murder, and he was sentenced the death, but the Crown reduced the sentence to a year of imprisonment.

The Hammersmith Ghost Chasing a Woman, Ex-Classics

The Looming Legal Question

Unfortunately, the case did not answer a complex legal question: Is “I believed I was in danger” a possible defense if the defendant was mistaken?

Even more unfortunately, the question remained unanswered for almost 180 years. As one court decision put it, these are “issues of law which have been the subject of debate for more years than one likes to think about and the subject of more learned academic articles than one would care to read in an evening.”

One legal researcher specifically considered supernatural mistakes. In Glanville L. William’s “Homicide and the Supernatural,” he examines what criminal responsibility means when the defendant thought the victim was supernatural. [2]

Williams argues that the defendant shouldn’t be charged with murder if they genuinely thought they were attacking a ghost. Since ghosts can’t be physically harmed, the defendant cannot have expected to kill or harm the ghost. [3] Furthermore, he points out that ghosts are scary, which “is itself sufficient to reduce a consequential killing from murder to manslaughter." [3] In the case of the Hammersmith ghost, Williams suggests that the court should considered Smith’s "state of mind." [4] Based on the court records, Williams reasons that Smith genuinely believed Milwood was a ghost, not a person when he shot. [5]

In 1983, the British courts gave some guidance. In a R. v. Williams – no ghosts involved  – a man attacked someone he thought was beating up a young man. On appeal, the court ruled that:

“The jury should be directed first of all that the prosecution have the burden or duty of proving the unlawfulness of the defendant's actions; secondly, if the defendant may have been labouring under a mistake as to the facts, he must be judged according to his mistaken view of the facts; thirdly, that is so whether the mistake was, on an objective view, a reasonable mistake or not.”

So… is it murder to shoot a ghost? We can't answer that – we’re law librarians not lawyers, and this is the U.S. not Britain. But we would suggest that since actual ghosts are incorporeal, maybe you should call the Ghostbusters instead.

Can't get enough history? Check out SOLL's other blog posts about our historical collection

Works Cited

[1] The Hammersmith Ghost. Credit: Wellcome CollectionAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

[2] Glanville L. Williams, "Homicide and the Supernatural," Law Quarterly Review 65, no. 4 (October 1949): 491.

[3] Williams, 499.

[4] Ibid., 503.

[5] Ibid., 501-502.

09/22/2020
Georgia Armitage

 

Last week we celebrated Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, the day the United States Constitution was signed. In addition to the United States Constitution, every state also has its own constitution. Let's look at Oregon's Constitution – its importance, history, and how to research it.

Historic importance of early state constitutions

Most liberties the federal bill of rights guarantees only applied to the federal government until the 20th century. If your state constitution did not grant you the right to say, freedom of religion, your state could discriminate against you based on your religion. In 1826, Delaware outlawed blasphemy. Other states used public funds to support churches.

Eventually, the Supreme Court began applying amendments in the Bill of Rights to state law – a process called incorporation. The 14th Amendment made incorporation possible:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Despite this, the Supreme Court did not apply the 14th Amendment to states until the 20th century. 


State constitutions can expand civil liberties

Today, state constitutions can protect rights in ways that the United States Constitution does not. For example, in Oregon, our free speech rights are greater at the state level than at the federal level. Similarly, other state constitutions guarantee workers' rights or a clean environment.

But lawyers neglected state constitutions until relatively recently. Until the 1970s, lawyers turned to the federal bill of rights without consulting state constitutions. A former Oregon Supreme Court Justice, Justice Hans Linde, advocated for lawyers to look to state constitutions, pointing to situations where state constitutions better protect individual rights. This approach is called new judicial federalism. Take Tanner v. Lloyd Corp., Ltd. A mall stopped protestors from handing out anti-war materials. The protestors took their case to federal court and lost. The United States Supreme Court determined that this did not violate the 1st Amendment – free speech. Under the Oregon Constitution, the protesters likely would have won. [1]


Interpreting the Oregon Constitution

When the Oregon Supreme Court interprets the Oregon Constitution, they often look to historical sources to understand what the framers and the people who ratified it intended. [2] Among other resources, they look to dictionaries available in that period, newspaper accounts, and Oregon Constitutional Convention materials. [3]

The court also looks to other states' materials. [4] State constitutions either stand on the shoulders of giants or plagiarize (depending on your current state of frustration at the framers’ inability to cite sources). Most state constitutions borrow from other states and the United States Constitution. 

The framers based most of the Oregon Constitution on the 1851 Indiana Constitution. As an Oregon delegate proclaimed, “if [I] was sent here to form a new Bible, [I] would copy the old one, and if [I] was employed To make a new hymn book, [I] would report an old one—they are better than any [I] could make.” But the framers also used materials from a number of different states – especially Midwestern states, unsurprising since many Oregon pioneers were originally from the Midwest.

Indiana 1851 Constitution materials

History of the Oregon Constitutional Convention

In 1849, at the Oregon Territorial Legislature’s first session, a representative proposed statehood. The bill failed. [5] After 3 more proposals and almost 10 years, the Oregon territory decided to hold a constitutional convention in 1857. [6]

Slavery drove the change. [6] Before 1857, Oregon’s Whig party minority wanted to avoid statehood, fearing that the Democratic party would gain power. [7] But in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed. It allowed territories to determine whether they would be free or slave states. Previously under the Missouri Compromise, new free states were allowed above the northern Missouri border and new slave states below. The Kansas-Nebraska Act threw this into question, and pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups fought each other in Kansas. 

Oregon's Whigs and Democrats alike found national politics troubling. Whigs and Republicans worried that the federal government might impose slavery in Oregon. Democrats disliked the notion that the federal government could control their policies. [8] As a result, both groups decided that Oregon should become a state, holding a constitutional convention 1857. 

Unfortunately, we know relatively little about the debates surrounding the Oregon Constitution – what we have comes mostly from newspapers favoring specific parties and a few materials from the convention that Professor Claudia Burton discovered. The delegates refused to pay for a court reporter, foreshadowing the penny-pinching that characterized the convention.

As Judge Deady – one of the delegates – put it, “every question which came up here was first discussed on the ground of its expense, as though a government could be devised without expense." [9] The size of juries hinged on the cost. [10] Government salaries were so low that one delegate remarked in frustration: 

“In the opinion of this convention, twelve dollars and fifty-cents is an ample salary for the governor; provided, that after the good old school master fashion, he boards around and that the committee of the whole be instructed so to report.”

Racism

Racism defined Oregon's new constitution: “172 of its 185 sections were copied from other constitutions, and the thirteen original ones consisted almost entirely of various racial exclusions and measures limiting state expenditures.” [11]

Slavery remained a contested topic, and convention considered passing a resolution not to debate it. The Democrats were split regarding slavery and feared that discussing it would break the party’s united majority. Thus, the question of whether slavery would be allowed, and whether African Americans could live in Oregon at all, went to a public vote. In the end, Oregon choose to be a free state, but to exclude African Americans from living there.

Furthermore, the convention went to some efforts to ensure that only whites could vote. As they debated the text of the suffrage sections, the delegates focused largely on whether the wording could be construed in any way that might allow non-whites to vote. One delegate worried that “quarter-blood negroes” would be able to vote. Another suggested that the wording should read, “pure white.” One argued that “chinaman” should be added the phrase “no negro or mulatto should have the right of suffrage.” The delegates added the last.  

The final phrasing (repealed in 1927) read: “No Negro, Chinaman, or Mulatto shall have the right of suffrage.”

Oregon Statehood

Congress found Oregon’s stance on minorities polarizing. On the one hand, Southerners did not want another free state. One the other, Republicans disliked Oregon’s discriminatory policies. The bill for Oregon statehood passed the Senate, but it remained contested in the House. 

The Oregon History Project's excerpt of the Senate debate gives a sense of the national politics surrounding Oregon statehood. In it, Missouri Senator John B. Clarke argues that Oregon should be admitted despite the South’s reservations, because “whenever we surrender the right to determine who shall vote in the States, we do not know how soon we will be deprived of that right ourselves.” Furthermore, he argues that those concerned about Oregon’s discriminatory voting policies are hypocrites because they limit voting to the wealthy.

Eventually, a few House Republicans determined that Oregon should receive statehood because Oregon had followed the correct procedures – they held a convention and a ratification vote. This tipped the scales, and Oregon became a state on February 14th, 1859. 


Our State Constitutional Materials

Ready to research?

The State of Oregon Law Library maintains a list of all of our state and tribal constitutions and constitutional research materials. You can also search our catalog to see what materials we have available. Although the library building is currently closed to the public due to COVID-19, you can email us your research questions. We’re happy to help you find electronic versions of materials or scan physical ones.

Primary Resources:

     Here is a short list of the state constitutions Oregon’s used (or likely used) [12]:

  • Connecticut 1818
  • Indiana 1851
  • Iowa 1846
  • Iowa 1857
  • Illinois 1818
  • Maine 1819
  • Massachusetts 1780
  • Michigan 1850
  • Ohio 1851
  • Wisconsin 1848
  • Texas 1845

Secondary Sources:

Happy researching! Stay safe!

Works Cited

[1] Hans A. Linde, "First Things First: Rediscovering the States' Bills of Rights," University of Baltimore Law Review 9, no. 3 (1980): 389, HeinOnline.

[2] Jack L. Landau, "An Introduction to Oregon Constitutional Interpretation," Willamette Law Review 55, no. 2 (2019): 269, 293, HeinOnline.

[3] Ibid., 276, 293-294.

[4] Ibid., 297-300.

[5] David Schuman, "The Creation of the Oregon Constitution," Oregon Law Review 74, no. 2 (1995): 613-615, HeinOnline.

[6] Ibid., 615.

[7] Ibid., 614.

[8] Ibid., 617.

[9] Oregon, The Oregon constitution and proceedings and debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1857, ed. Charles Henry Carey, 369-370, quoted in David Schuman, "The Creation of the Oregon Constitution," Oregon Law Review 74, no. 2 (1995): 623, HeinOnline.

[10] Schuman 622.

[11] Ibid., 611.

[12] Palmer, W.C.. "The Sources of the Oregon Constitution." Oregon Law Review 5, no. 3 (1926): 200-215, HeinOnline.

05/28/2020
Amanda Duke

undefined

Judge Moses Levy by Rembrandt Peale 1808

May is Jewish American Heritage Month. Although the celebration is relatively new (beginning in 2006), the contributions of Jewish Americans to American life and culture are not. The first known Jewish individual to come to North America arrived in 1570. By the Revolutionary War, there were roughly 2000-3000 Jews in the colonial United States; most of them were descended from Dutch Jews, who had originally settled in Brazil but were exiled in 1654 when Portugal took over the country and began an Inquisition there.

Discrimination followed them to the colonial United States, as the majority of towns and colonies under British rule denied Jews the right to vote or hold citizenship unless they professed “true faith in Christ.”[1] In 1740, the British Naturalization Act allowed Jews and Protestants to obtain citizenship in the colonies after 7 years of residence. However, some colonies then immediately passed their own laws against Jewish citizenship.[2] Although they were not Christian, Jews were still subject to church taxes and laws observing prohibitions on doing business, the sale of alcohol, hunting, “indecent behavior,” etc. on Sundays. They were often required to take special oaths of allegiance, they were not able to hold federal office until 1788. Jews were forbidden to practice law in most colonies prior to the eighteenth century, with only 3 exceptions: Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Georgia. 

This discrimination made the career of Moses Levy of Pennsylvania, who was on the shortlist for appointment to United States Attorney General under Thomas Jefferson, all the more remarkable. Levy was born in 1757 to a prominent Jewish family of Philadelphia. His father, a merchant, was one of the signers of the Philadelphia resolution not to import goods from England until the Stamp Act was repealed. Moses Levy joined the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and was with George Washington in the Delaware river crossing in a surprise attack by the American army on Hessian troops at Trenton, New Jersey.

As if being a soldier wasn’t enough to occupy him, Levy found time to gain admission into the Pennsylvania Bar in 1778 while he was still serving. The law seems to have been a family affair, as two of his brothers were also admitted to the Bar. Levy went on to be admitted to the circuit court bar in 1791 and served as a recorder for the Philadelphia circuit court from 1802 to 1822. He later became a presiding judge of the district court of the city, was briefly a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, and a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania.

Connection the State of Oregon Law Library

So how does Moses Levy connect to the State of Oregon Law Library? Through a book called The Reports of Sir Creswell Levinz, which belonged to Levy. He signed it October 1, 1795. 

Levinz was a judge in England during the 1680s. The reporter details some cases he oversaw known as the “Bloody Assizes.” These were a series of trials relating to the Monmouth Rebellion, which was an attempt by James Scott (the Duke of Monmouth), an illegitimate son of King Charles II, to overthrow King James II. James II was a Roman Catholic, which many in England objected to. However, although Monmouth was popular in some areas, his army, largely made up of farmworkers and artisans was no match for the regular British army. The rebellion lasted a mere 3 months before Monmouth was defeated and executed. The Bloody Assizes trials dealt with more than 1400 accused rebels. Most of them were sentenced to death, although ultimately only around 300 were hanged. Eight hundrend were exiled and transported to the West Indies where they were used for hard manual labor in plantations, the remaining died from diseases rife in the overcrowded prisons. Levinz was one of the five judges presiding over these trials, although the Lord Chief Justice George Jeffreys (nicknamed the Hanging Judge) is the most well-known judge associated with these cases. Given some parallels between the Monmouth Rebellion and the more recent Revolutionary War that Levy had been a part of, that may have been why he owned the book. 

Sir Creswell Levinz, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons Sir Creswell Levinz, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

In 1804, Levy was under consideration for the United States Attorney General by Thomas Jefferson, when the current Attorney General Levi Lincoln resigned. However, when Jefferson asked Secretary of Treasury Albert Gallatin for advice, Gallatin recommended that he avoid appointing Levy. His reasoning was that Levy was a superior lawyer, but a "second rate" statesman that would not fit in Jefferson's Cabinet. Gallatin goes on to say that finding someone to give up a practice from more lucrative areas, as Philadelphia seems to have been, to become Attorney General would be difficult.[4] Gallatin’s advice must have won out since John Breckenridge from Kentucky became the attorney general.

Despite their success, even the Levy family were not protected from anti-Semitism. Both Samson Levy and at least one of his sons (Samson Jr.) converted to Christianity. Given the discrimination Jewish people faced at the time, it is not hard to imagine that these two may have converted as a form of protection or when they found certain careers blocked to them.

During the time Moses Levy served as a recorder for the court, he was singled out in the Pennsylvania legislature with a proposed bill that would have prevented him from practicing. It is unclear if this bill was solely due to his being a recorder at the time and would have also applied to future holders of the same office, or if it would have only applied to him. The bill ended up being vetoed.[5] During a lawsuit where Levy represented prominent Dr. Benjamin Rush, the defendant William Cobbett attacked Levy in a newsletter where he said regarding a courtroom statement by Levy: “Such a diabolical thought never could have been engendered but in the mind of a Jew!” And went on to affect a caricature of a Yiddish accent: “a poor devil like Moses . . . did not believe a word that he said; he vash vorking for de monish, dat vash all.”[6] The Levy family came to the colonies sometime around the 1690s from Germany[7], Moses was the second generation born in the U.S. Even though Jews were granted citizenship, the Levy family had been for U.S. independence, that still did not prevent those like Cobbett from still seeing them as foreign or other.

undefined

 

 

Moses Levy memo,

courtesy of Ian Brabner Rare Americana

 

 

 

 

 

 

As Jewish American Heritage Month is almost at an end, learning about the Jewish people who helped shape this country does not have to be. Related to the Jewish experience more locally, we have the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Research in Portland. One of their projects has been to collect oral histories of Jewish people around the state who have called Oregon home, these histories contain both general stories of growing up Jewish in Oregon, as well as stories from Holocaust survivors who later moved to Oregon. We also have the Oregon Holocaust Memorial in Washington Park in Portland, which lists victims of the Holocaust and their families who have a connection to the Pacific Northwest. Small bronzes of everyday items are scattered throughout the memorial area in representation of all that was left behind as Jewish people were forced to leave their homes. A portion of the memorial wall contains ashes from several concentration camps.

To learn more, search the SOLL catalog for such topics as Jews and politics, civil rights, or religious discrimination. We also have a collection on the Nuremberg trials due to Oregon Supreme Court Justice James T. Brand having been one of the presiding judges at those trials. 

 

04/24/2020
Georgia Armitage
undefined
Oregon State Capitol, c. 1915
 
Not all heroes rescue small children or animals from burning buildings, some rescue books! Several years ago, we received a donation of books that the then Speaker of the House, John E. Cooter, saved from Oregon’s second capitol fire, 85 years ago. 
 
John E. Cooter was born on October 29th, 1890 to dairy farmers outside of Lebanon. Talented and well-educated, Cooter held a variety of positions including: university professor of agriculture, product marketing specialist, county agricultural agent, and country newspaper publisher. By 1932, Cooter became a democratic state legislator representing Lincoln county. During that time, he helped pass relief bills to mitigate the Great Depression, as well as bills regulating public utilities. Cooter also worked with the State Grange and advocated for the Coastal Highway. His skill working across the aisle earned him a place as Speaker of House in 1935. 
 
Unfortunately, on April 25th, 1935, the Oregon Capitol burned. The fire started in the building’s basement, likely when papers spontaneously combusted. The building’s design sealed its fate. According to the Salem Fire Department, the “redwood columns that held up the dome were hollow and open at the base and the top,” and they functioned “like a chimney.” The Oregon Insurance Rating Bureau described how the fire “again demonstrated the hazards of such occupancy in buildings of this type of construction.”
 
The Capitol’s flames were visible for fifteen miles. Despite Salem firefighters' prompt arrival, they could not quell the fire in the basement – it was already too hot. Cutting into one of the pillars on the first floor, “they observed flames rushing upward and at almost the same moment fire burst from another on the opposite side of the rotunda.” By 8 p.m., the dome collapsed. By 9:30 p.m., firefighters from Portland arrived to help. After 17 hose lines, 2 pumpers, and 350,000 gallons of water, the fireman extinguished the flames. 
 
The fire killed one firefighter – Floyd McMullen. It also destroyed various state records and portraits. Water used to douse the fire even damaged books in the Oregon Supreme Court and Library building because it and the Capitol were connected through a tunnel. In the end, it caused one million dollars of damage or almost $19 million in today’s money.
 
Capitol after the fire
Oregon State Archives, Oregon Board of Control, OBC0018 and OBC0017
 
Cooter rescued five books he felt the government needed to function. Specifically, he saved: Oregon Laws 1931, Oregon Laws 1933 Regular and Special Sessions, Oregon Laws 1935, Senate and House Journals 1933, Senate and House Journals 1935. Cooter likely immediately put the books to use, as he oversaw the 1935 Special Session to rebuild the Capitol. 
 
Later that year, the Oregon Attorney General charged Cooter and several other Democrats with holding other state positions in addition to their duties in the legislature. Some Democrats argued that they were being attacked for their party because several Republicans also held other state positions. Regardless, the charges forced Cooter to leave the legislature. According to his children, the State gifted him with the books as “a memento of his service.” 
 
undefined
John E. Cooter's stamp inside Oregon Laws 1933 Regular and Special Sessions
 
His children and grandson kept the books and eventually donated them to the State of Oregon Law Library. Fittingly, the books are again serving the purpose Cooter intended when he rescued them: helping the state government continue running. 
 
Craving more history or need something to read at home?

An earlier version of this blog post stated Cooter “ran into the building.” That could not be verified and has been removed from the final version.

03/05/2020
Amanda Duke

Women's History Month display at SOLL

 

Women’s history month has a long past, beginning with roots in the first International Women’s Day in 1911. This began as a celebration of honoring working women, and for many countries is a day to either celebrate suffrage or to protest continued gender-based discrimination. In the late 1970s, schools in Sonoma, California began doing a week-long observation to address the lack of women's history in the curriculum. This practice spread to other schools and colleges, President Jimmy Carter enacted a National Women's History Week in 1980. Because the dates of this women's history week varied every year, a national effort was made by women's organizations to lobby for a full month with set calendar dates. President Ronald Reagan signed the first National Women's History Month in 1987.

In recognition of this month, here is a selection of books we have in the State of Oregon Law Library on women and the law.

 

Pictured left to right: Marian Towne the first woman elected to the Oregon House of Representatives; Katherine Clarke was appointed to the state Senate; Fern Hobbs  was Secretary to Governor Oswald West and charged with cleaning up the lawless town of Copperfield, Oregon.[1]

 

Oregon Women’s Legal history

Images of Oregon women by Ellen Nichols

Muller v Oregon by Nancy Woloch

Oregon legislation for women in industry by Sister Miriam Theresa 

Report of the Oregon Supreme Court/Oregon State Bar Task Force on Gender Fairness.

The sex code of Oregon: a compilation of Oregon statutes pertaining to sex compiled by Kathleen Beaufait

Stettler v O’Hara by Louis Brandeis

With Grit and By Grace by Betty Roberts

Women in Oregon: poverty, employment and assets by Jessica Bull 

Women's history mural in Portland, Oregon[2]

General Law

Breaking down barriers: a legal guide to Title IX by the National Women’s Law Center

A commentary on the effect of the Equal rights amendment on state laws and institutions by Anne K. Bingaman

Fifty years after the Equal Pay Act: assessing the past, taking stock of the future 

Hearing before the Committee on Woman Suffrage, February 21, 1894

The hidden malpractice: how American medicine treats women as patients and professionals by Gena Corea

The sexual barrier: legal, medical, economic, and social aspects of sex discrimination by Marija Matich Hughes

Proceedings of the National Conference on Gender Bias in the Courts edited by Dixie K. Knoebel

Women and the law: the unfinished revolution by Leo Kanowitz

Women in the courts edited by Winifred L. Hepperle and Laura Crites

Women's Suffrage by Constitutional Amendment by Henry St. George Tucker

 

Famous cases

The law for a woman: real cases and what happened by Ellen Switzer

Report of the d’Hauteville case

 

To search for additional books in our catalog, go to advanced search, select subject and search by categories such as equal rights, women suffrage, or "women legal status."

 

Image Credits

[1]  Unknown author, March 2, 1915, Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger. Wikimedia Commons open access, last accessed March 5, 2020 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Early_women_in_public_service_in_Oregon.png

[2] Women Making History in Portland mural by Robin Corbo. Image credit: Photogaph by Tony Webster, 2015. Wikimedia Commons open access, last accessed March 5, 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Women_Making_History_in_Portland_Mural_(19539479563).jpg 

[3] Image credit: photographed in 1921 by Ralph Russell Doubleday. Flickr open access, last accessed March 5, 2020 https://www.flickr.com/photos/tico_manudo_postcards/10484623646

02/05/2020
Amanda Duke

Illustration under the term "day-net" in the Dictionarium Rusticum

 
A few months ago, we had a rather surprising drop-off at our library. The State Library brought over two items that they, in turn, had received from the University of Oregon’s Knight Library. The materials are labeled as belonging to the State of Oregon Law Library (SOLL), but we did not have a record of them in our current catalog. They arrived as we were prepping for our temporary move, so we couldn’t consult the old card catalog, which was phased out in the 1990s. The one clue we have is an acquisition stamp dated April 2, 1958, on the inside cover.  So, the question is, when and how did these items leave the library? 
 
The State Law Librarian has been here for about 17 years and does not remember these items. So, unfortunately, we cannot narrow down when they disappeared, other than to say it was sometime between 1958 and roughly 2003. To add to their mystery, the items were anonymously donated at the Knight Library. We don't know if one patron held onto them all this time or if they changed hands several times. Were the items checked out and then lost for years, or were they deliberately taken?  While all these questions remain, we were able to find some interesting facts about the materials.
 

The first item is a 1726 dictionary entitled Dictionarium rusticum, urbanicum & botanicum: or, a dictionary of husbandry, gardening, trade, commerce and all sorts of country-affairs.  Perhaps it seems odd that SOLL would own a dictionary on “husbandry and gardening,” but it fits in very well with an older law library like ours. Most common-place English dictionaries wouldn't contain terms from specific industries, and it was important to make sure that any words used in legal documents relating to agricultural, land deeds, and farm labor contracts were used correctly.

The book was originally published in 1669 without an author but has been attributed to either Nathan Bailey or John Worlidge, or both working together. Bailey was an English lexicographer who authored several works, his greatest was the Universal etymological dictionary, which was the most popular English dictionary in the 18th century and went through some 30 editions between 1721 and 1802. Bailey was a pioneer of lexicography and changed the scope of modern-day dictionaries—before the early 1700s, English dictionaries only focused on difficult or obscure words. Bailey, along with a few others, broadened that scope to include more commonplace words, slang, specialized jargon, and dialects. John Worlidge (sometimes spelled Woolridge) was an English agriculturalist, who compiled the first systematic treatise on husbandry and was the first to write about farming as an industry. The dictionary was published as a companion to Worlidge's first work on agriculture, the 1668 Systema Agriculturae, or the Mystery of husbandry discovered. 

The second item was an indenture on vellum paper, which is dated circa 1701 and was a labor contract between William Provis of Shepton-Mallet, Somerset, England and John Poole of Chilton Polden, Somerset, England. Here in the U.S., this contract of labor is the type of indenture we are more familiar with, like indentured servants in colonial history. However, the term refers to legal contracts between two or more parties that can also apply to land, with mortgages or the temporary use of outbuildings or fields being types of indenture. The term arose as the early contracts were written in duplicate, triplicate or quadripartite, depending on the number of parties, on the same large sheet of paper. The copies were then separated by cutting a waving or jagged notched line (the Middle English term “endenter” meant toothed because of this jagged edge). Each party then had a copy of the contract and the cut pattern would be used to verify authenticity. 

Indenture of William Provis & John Poole

Close-up of the indenture between William Provis and John Poole

The town of Shepton-Mallet was a small village with a population of about 500 at the time near the Bristol channel; this area in England known for its limestone quarries, ​as well as the wool and cloth trade. William Provis’ profession is noted as a clothier (or clothes merchant). The Provis family was a prominent merchant family in the region, with two members serving as the High Sheriff of Somerset, and extensive landowners, with a residence in the exclusive upper-class Royal Crescent neighborhood of Bath, England. 

The contract has Provis buying the contents of a "cottage" for the sum of what appears to be 4 shillings from John Poole. We have been less successful in close-up of indenture stampidentifying further information about Poole, but he appears to have been a weaver.

Buying a cottage referred to a merchant employing workers by supplying the raw fiber to a group (usually one family working from their home) and sometimes supplying the looms to them as well, and then the spinners and weavers turned this into linen, yarn or wool. The merchant took the finished product and sold it in bulk as yards of cloth (the average price wool was sold for in bulk was usually about 26 shillings for every 28 pounds).[1] How much time it took to produce the cloth varied, but generally a weaver needed the product of at least 4-5 spinners working one week to finish. 4 shillings would have been the equivalent of about 2 days wages for a skilled textile worker, who generally earned about 33 pounds a year. 

While we may never uncover the mysteries of provenance and disappearance, (re)discovering these items and researching their history has been a fascinating journey. Many thanks, to whoever realized these items belonged to a library and brought them back. And much gratitude to the Knight Library and to the State Library for making sure they found their way to us.

01/16/2020
Georgia Armitage
A political cartoonist’s scrawl in the State of Oregon Law Library's (SOLL) copy of the Trial of Thomas O. Selfridge teaches this important lesson: never argue or throw a skillet at someone who buys ink by the barrel. 
Annotation (mostly likely by James Akin): “James Akin bot this book at Newbury port 1806 price One Dollar”
 
Born in South Carolina, James Akin (c.1773-1846) worked as an engraver in Philadelphia. Most famously, he drew political cartoons. For example, he mocked the press for their treatment of Andrew Jackson during the Election of 1824 (Jackson lost), and he mocked Andrew Jackson when Jackson won in 1828. But his first political cartoons – along with a caricature of his employer holding a skillet – appeared around the time he bought the Trial of Thomas O. Selfridge in Newburyport, MA.
 
In 1804, Akin moved to Newburyport to work for Edmund M. Blunt. The two argued over Akin’s employment bond, and Akin sued Blunt. The situation escalated in October when they met in a hardware store:
 
      Blunt: “THIEF!”
      Akin (aggrieved at the attack on his honor): “Duel me!” 
      Blunt (chucks a skillet at Akin): “Nah.” 
 
Akin’s dueling challenge landed him in jail, but he destroyed Blunt with a caricature titled Infuriated despondency! Akin even wrote a song to go along with the caricature: "Chorus / And peoples will remember long / The story, to a tittle, / That gave rise to my Muse’s Song, / About an iron kettle / You’ve heard, no doubt, a prattling clown, / An ugly, sland’rous fellow, / Revile at folks thro’ all the town, / With one eternal bellow.”
Infuriated despondency! (1805)
 
The caricature did well. The design even made it to England, where it decorated chamber pots
 
During his time in Newburyport, Akin also turned his acidic commentary on President Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans. Akin’s first political cartoon, A Philosophic Cock (1804), portrays Jefferson and Sally Hemings, his slave who bore him six children. Akin illustrates Jefferson as a proud rooster, while Sally Hemings crouches as a subservient hen. The caption underscores the racist tone, suggesting Jefferson having sex with an African American slave was worse because her race made her unattractive: “Tis not a set of features or complexion or tincture of a skin that I admire." (For more information on Sally Hemings, please see Monticello's discussion). Aside from the cruder suggestion, depicting Jefferson as a cock – cocks often represented revolutionary France – highlighted the Democratic-Republicans' ties to France and the French Revolution, something the opposing Federalist Party despised. 
 
A Philosophic Cock (1804)
 
Another of Akin’s cartoons from Newburyport illustrates Jefferson’s failed attempt to buy West Florida from Spain. In The prairie dog sickened at the sting of the hornet or a diplomatic puppet exhibiting his deceptions, Napoleon stings Jefferson, who vomits up the money needed to pay for West Florida. Meanwhile, a man bounces from foot to foot, holding maps of Florida in front of Jefferson. The dog follows the hornet’s lead, suggesting that Jefferson follows Napoleon, rather than his own country – a common federalist spin on the incident.
 
The prairie dog sickened at the sting of the hornet or a diplomatic puppet exhibiting his deceptions (1804)
 
Akin’s dislike for Democratic-Republicans, likely explains why he bought the Trial of Thomas O. Selfridge despite its expense (one dollar represented a day’s wages for a laborer in 1806 Massachusetts). The book describes the trial of a Federalist (Thomas O. Selfridge) who killed the son of the chairman of the Democratic-Republican Party (Benjamin Austin) in self-defense. The killing and trial further divided the parties, making it interesting to a political cartoonist like Akin. More personally, the trials discussed whether one could kill in self-defense for honor, a relevant question for Akin – someone who went to jail for dueling propositions. 
 
Akin left Newburyport in 1807, after posting a snarky farewell in the newspaper. For us, he left a reminder that throwing skillets can put you on a chamber pot.
 
James Akin wasn't the only person scrawling on SOLL's collection. Keep your eyes open for more posts discussing marginalia and manuscripts at SOLL! For a more immediate history fix, read about SOLL's connection to a constitutional signer
 
 
Image Credits:
Akin, James. Infuriated despondency! Engraving, 1805. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA. https://www.americanantiquarian.org/
Akin, James. A philosophic cock. Aquatint print, 1804. American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA. https://www.americanantiquarian.org/
Akin, James. The prairie dog sickened at the sting of the hornet or a diplomatic puppet exhibiting his deceptions. Etching, 1804. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. https://www.loc.gov/
Sources:
Dzurec, David. “Of Salt Mountains, Prairie Dogs, and Horned Frogs.” Journal of the Early Republic 35, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 79–108. doi:10.1353/jer.2015.0012.
Kelly, James C., and B. S. Lovell. "Thomas Jefferson: His Friends and Foes." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 101, no. 1 (1993): 133-57. Accessed January 14, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/4249333.
Maureen O'Brien Quimby. "The Political Art of James Akin." Winterthur Portfolio 7 (1972): 59-112. Accessed January 14, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/1180534
09/18/2017
Unknown Unknown

Happy Constitution Day! On September 17, we celebrate the signing of the United States Constitution. Here at the State of Oregon Law Library, we have an unexpected connection to one of the signers – Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina.

SOLL has a large collection of rare and historic law books, primarily from early America and the British Isles. One of these, Reports of Cases Concerning the Revenue, Argued and Determined (dated 1776), bears a strikingly similar signature!

 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney signature displayed on the title page


Charles Cotesworth Pinckney – not to be confused with his second cousin and fellow-Constitution signer Charles Pinckney – “was an influential member of the constitutional convention of 1787, advocating the counting of all slaves as a basis of representation and opposing the abolition of the slave trade. He opposed as ‘impracticable’ the election of representative by popular vote, and also opposed the payment of senators, who, he thought, should be men of wealth. Subsequently Pinckney bore a prominent part in securing the ratification of the Federal constitution in the South Carolina convention called for that purpose in 1788 and in framing the South Carolina State Constitution in the convention of 1790.” (Encyclopædia britannica, 1911, p. 616)

In the new U.S. government, Pinckney succeeded James Monroe as minister to France, and was involved in the diplomatic incident known as the XYZ Affair, where French agents tried to ask for bribes. According to popular legend, Pinckney vehemently rebuffed them with the response, “No! No! Not a sixpence!” 

Pinckney went on to become the Federalist candidate for Vice President in 1800, and for President in 1804 and 1808, with all campaigns bein unsuccessful. According to the National Archives, “For the rest of his life, Pinckney engaged in legal practice, served at times in the legislature, and engaged in philanthropic activities” – perhaps occasionally using this very book. 

-Carin Yavorcik, Technical Services Librarian 

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in September 2017 and has been updated with links and photos for accuracy and comprehensiveness on 9/13/2021

 

References

The Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed., Vol. XXI). (1911). Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press.

The Founding Fathers: South Carolina. (2016, September 29). Retrieved September 18, 2017, from https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers-south-carolina

SOLLOJD
About Us | hours 8 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. M-F | map | 1163 State Street, Salem, OR 97301 | email | 503-986-5640