Details

Subject(s)

• Enemy property—United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865 [Browse]
• United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Law and legislation [Browse]
• United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Confiscations and contributions [Browse]
• United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Claims [Browse]

Summary note

Americans take for granted that government does not have the right to permanently seize private property without just compensation. Yet for much of American history, such a view constituted the weaker side of an ongoing argument about government sovereignty and individual rights. What brought about this drastic shift in legal and political thought? Daniel W. Hamilton locates that change in the crucible of the Civil War. In the early days of the war, Congress passed the First and Second Confiscation Acts, authorizing the Union to seize private property in the rebellious states of the Confederacy, and the Confederate Congress responded with the broader Sequestration Act. The competing acts fueled a fierce, sustained debate among legislators and lawyers about the principles underlying alternative ideas of private property and state power, a debate which by 1870 was increasingly dominated by today's view of more limited government power. Through its exploration of this little-studied consequence of the debates over confiscation during the Civil War, The Limits of Sovereignty will be essential to an understanding of the place of private property in American law and legal history.

Notes

Description based upon print version of record.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (p. [173]-215) and index.

Language note

English

Contents

• Legislative property confiscation before the Civil War
• Radical property confiscation in the Thirty-seventh Congress
• The conservative assault on confiscation
• The moderate coup
• The Confederate Sequestration Act
• The ordeal of sequestration
• Civil War confiscation in the reconstruction supreme court
• The limits of sovereignty.

Show 5 more Contents items

ISBN

• 9786611957063
• 9781281957061
• 1281957062
• 9780226314860
• 0226314863

OCLC

• 476229575
• 1058071174

Doi

• 10.7208/9780226314860

Statement on responsible collection description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...