New-right Research Articles

A New Right to Property: Civil War Confiscation in the Reconstruction Supreme Court

A New Right to Property: Civil War Confiscation in the Reconstruction Supreme Court DANIEL W. HAMILTON* During the Civil War, both the Union Congress and the Confederate Congress put in place sweeping confiscation programs designed to seize the private property of enemy citizens on a massive scale. Meeting in special session in August 1861, the U.S. Congress passed the First Confiscation Act, authorizing the federal government to seize the property ofthose participating directly in the rebellion.1 The Confederate Congress retaliated on August 30, 1861, passing the Sequestration Act.2 This law authorized the Confederate government to forever seize the real and personal property of “alien enemies,” a term that included every U.S. citizen and all those living in the Confederacy who remained loyal to the Union. Ten months later, in July 1862, the U.S. Congress passed the much broader Second Confiscation Act.3 This expansive law per­ mitted the Union government to seize all the real and personal property ofanyone taking up arms against the government, anyone aiding the rebellion directly, or anyone offering aid or comfortto the rebellion. This effectivelymeant the U.S could legally seize all the property of all those who recognized and supported the le­ gitimacy of the Confederacy. The Civil War represented the second great American experiment with broad leg­ islative confiscation during wartime, after the American Revolution.4 The Civil War isjustly described as America’s second revolution.5 Yet the nineteenth-century experience with con­ fiscation reveals the extent to which, when it came to the relationship of property and the state, the country had changed from the first revolution to the second. The outcomes of these two wartime experiments with con­ fiscation were nearly opposite. Revolutionary confiscation was marked by the quick, deci­ sive, vigorous pursuit of disloyal property. A great deal ofLoyalist property was seized for­ ever, without compensation or recourse to the courts. Eighty years later, confiscation met quite a different fate. During the Civil War, the A NEW RIGHT TO PROPERTY 255 Revolutionary conception of sovereignty found its fullest expression only in the los­ ing section. The Confederacy quickly put in place an effective confiscation program, de­ signed to seize U.S. property, that was every bit as zealous as any pursued during the Rev­ olution. Yet in the wake of Confederate de­ feat, this broad assertion of legislative power was quickly reversed. After the war, the Con­ federate confiscation program was completely dismantled. Soon after victory, the Union nul­ lified almost all the public laws ofthe Confed­ eracy, including sequestration. From the point of view of American law after the Civil War, it was quite literally as ifthe Confederate Se­ questration Act had never existed. The seizure of millions of dollars of U.S. property by the Confederacy was meaningless and had never, in the eyes ofthe law, taken place. If Confederate sequestration was marked by vigor, Union confiscation was marked by an agonized, intractable, ideological impasse. Union confiscation defied legislative consen­ sus andmostly failed inpractice as a result. The language ofthe Acts containedconfusing, even contradictory instructions, which made their enforcement immensely difficult, if not virtu­ ally impossible. Relatively little property was actually confiscated, and the Second Confisca­ tion Act was more or less ignored by Lincoln and the executive branch during the war before languishing in the federal courts for decades afterwards. Once confiscation ceased to be politi­ cally viable, it did not simply vanish. Instead, it remained a fixture in American property law for fifty years. Even as the executive branch ceased to confiscate property, the fed­ eral courts were beginning to considerthe vital legal and constitutional issues raised by con­ fiscation. These questions included many that the Supreme Court had not faced in seventyfive years, or had never faced. Was permanent, uncompensated property confiscation for dis­ loyalty a legitimate power of Congress? Did a presidential pardon mandate the return of already-confiscated property? Who had title to confiscated land, and how should it be treated in the marketplace? What was the le­ gal and constitutional status of the Confeder­ ate Sequestration Act and property seized un­ der the Act? The Supreme Court had never been asked these fundamental legal questions. Its...

The God-Market Alliance in Defence of Family and Community: The Case of the New Right in the United States

The New Right (NR) in the United States refers to a coalition of religious and pro-family groups, think-tanks, Political Action Committees and lobbying groups which operate at both national and local levels. The coalition first came to public attention by claiming to have mobilized Christian voters for the election of president Ronald Reagan. During much of the 1980s it enjoyed the personal/political endorsement of the Great Orator, and NR leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie and Phylis Schlafly enjoyed much publicity. The NR presented an image of itself as a revolutionary movement aimed at restructuring American society following the fundamental principles of the Bible and traditional family and community values.

THE CHALLENGE OF THE NEW RIGHT: It's Liberty versus Equality and to Hell with Fraternity!

(1987). THE CHALLENGE OF THE NEW RIGHT: It's Liberty versus Equality and to Hell with Fraternity! Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education: Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 61-76.

STUDIES IN AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION. Secession: The Ultimate States Right. By Gregory Craven

Book reviewed in this article:GODLINESS AND GOOD ORDER. A HISTORY OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. By David HilliardA PLACE OF LIGHT AND LEARNING. The University of Queensland's First Seventy‐five Years. By Malcolm ThomisTHE WHITLAM PHENOMENON. Fabian PapersHIGH HOPES: THE MEN AND MOTIVES OF THE AUSTRALIAN ROUND TABLE. By Leonie FosterTHE AUSTRALIAN PEACE MOVEMENT: A SHORT HISTORY. By Malcolm Saunders and Ralph SummyWHITE WOMEN IN FIJI 1835–1930. The Ruin of Empire? By Claudia KnapmanKANAKA. A HISTORY OF MELANESIAN MACKAY. By Clive MooreGOOD AND MAD WOMEN: the Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth Century Australia. By Jill Julius MatthewsRATIONS, RESIDENCE, RESOURCES. A History of Social Welfare in South Australia since 1836. By Brian Dickey with contributions from Elaine Martin and Rod OxenberryASBESTOS—ITS HUMAN COST. By Jock McCullochFROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE. A Biography of Michael Joseph Savage. By Barry GustafsonAMERICAN LAKE: NUCLEAR PERIL IN THE PACIFIC. By Peter Hayes, Lyuba Zarsky, Walden BelloPROTEST AND DISSENT IN THE COLONIAL PACIFIC. By Peter Hempenstall and Noel RutherfordWAR WITHOUT MERCY: RACE AND POWER IN THE PACIFIC WAR. By John W. DowerASIA'S NEW INDUSTRIAL WORLD. By Michael Smith, Jane McLoughlin, Peter Large and Rod ChapmanRED BROTHERHOOD AT WAR: Indochina Since the Fall of Saigon. By Grant Evans and Kelvin RowleyTHE DEMOCRATIC IMAGINATION IN AMERICA: CONVERSATIONS WITH OUR PAST. By Russell L. HansonTHE ORIGINS OF EUROPEAN DISSENT. By R.I. MooreTHE POLITICS AND ECONOMICS OF APPEASEMENT: BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY IN THE 1930s. By Gustav SchmidtPOPULAR OPPOSITION TO THE 1834 POOR LAW. By John KnottTHE UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND 1603–1608. By Bruce GallowayWEALTH AND VIRTUE: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment. Edited by Isrvan Hont and Michael IgnatieffPÉTAIN: HERO OR TRAITOR? The Untold Story. By Herbert R. LottmanTHE POLICIES OF GENOCIDE: JEWS AND SOVIET PRISONERS OF WAR IN NAZI GERMANY. Edited by Gerhard HirschfeldFATEFUL MONTHS. Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution. By Christopher R. BrowningTHE CRISIS ZONE OF EUROPE. An interpretation of east‐central European history in the first half of the twentieth century. By Ivan T. BerendOPEC: The Failing Giant. By Mohammed E. AhrariWOMEN AND CLASS IN AFRICA. Edited by Claire Robertson and Iris BergerINDEPENDENT AFRICA AND THE WORLD. By Peter CalvocoressiSOUTH AFRICA: A Plural Society in Transition. Edited by D.J. Van Vuuren, N.E. Wiehahn, J.A. Lombard and N.J. RhoodieARGENTINA: ILLUSIONS AND REALITIES. By Gary W. WyniaPOLITICAL THOUGHT IN MODERN INDIA. By Thomas Pantham and Kenneth L. DeutschCLAUSEWITZ AND THE STATE. By Peter ParetREVOLUTIONARY POLITICS AND LOCKE'S TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT. By Richard AshcraftIDEOLOGY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE. Destutt de Tracy and French Liberalism. By Brian William HeadTHE LONGING FOR TOTAL REVOLUTION: Philosophic Sources of Social Discontent from Rousseau to Marx and Nietzsche. By Bernard YackTHE IDEOLOGY OF THE NEW RIGHT. Edited by Ruth LevitasPROTECTING THE VULNERABLE. A Reanalysis of Our Social Responsibilities. By Robert E. GoodinPOLITICAL TOLERANCE IN CONTEXT. Support for Unpopular Minorities in Israel, New Zealand, and the United States. By John L. Sullivan, Michael Shamir, Patrick Welsh, and Nigel S. RobertsSEXISM, RACISM AND OPPRESSION. By Arthur Brittain and Mary MaynardCABINET. By Peter HennessyADMINISTRATIVE ANALYSIS: An Introduction to Rules, Enforcement and OrganisationsThe Restrospective National Bibliography (RNB) Project

THE UNITED STATES SENATE: THE NEW INDIVIDUALISM AND THE NEW RIGHT

Journal Article THE UNITED STATES SENATE: THE NEW INDIVIDUALISM AND THE NEW RIGHT Get access Christopher J. Bailey Christopher J. Bailey Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 39, Issue 3, July 1986, Pages 354–367, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a052051 Published: 01 July 1986

Cities in Recession: Critical Responses to the Urban Policies of the New Right

PART ONE: THE POLITICS AND ECONOMICS OF THE NEW RIGHT - Ivan Szelenyi Introduction: Urban Policies of the New Right -- Critical Responses The New Class War in the United States - Frances Fox Piven and Richard A Cloward Business Rationality and Barriers to Recapitalization - Donald Tomaskovic-Devy and S M Miller PART TWO: LEFT RESPONSES TO THE DECLINE OF PUBLIC HOUSING, PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AND URBAN JOBS The Decollectivization of Consumption - Michael Harloe and Chris Paris Housing and Local Government Finance in England and Wales, 1979-1981 Urban Transportation for Whom? Determinants and Consequences of Transit Change in the United States and Germany - Glenn Yago Transnational Capitalism and Urban Crisis - Richard Child Hill The Case of the Auto Industry and Detroit PART THREE: LEFT RESPONSES TO THE POLICIES OF URBAN AUSTERITY The Social Democratic State in a Radical Region - Philip Cooke and Gareth Rees Development Agencies, Industrial Change and Class Relations in South Wales Austerity and the Politics of Resistance - Brian Elliott and David McCrone The Working Class and the State - Jean Lojkine The French Experience in Socialist and Communist Municipalities The Turn to the Left among Italian Cities and Urban Public Policy - Michael Aiken and Guido Martinotti PART FOUR: A THIRD PARADIGM FOR URBAN SOCIOLOGY American Urban Theories and Urban Areas - Herbert J Gans Some Observations on Contemporary Ecological and Marxist Paradigms

FAMILY, MORALITY AND THE NEW RIGHT

Journal Article FAMILY, MORALITY AND THE NEW RIGHT Get access Martin Durham Martin Durham Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Parliamentary Affairs, Volume 38, Issue 2, SPRING 1985, Pages 180–191, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a051984 Published: 01 March 1985

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

New Inventions: A NEW RIGHT ENDOBRONCHIAL TUBE

New Inventions: A NEW RIGHT ENDOBRONCHIAL TUBE