Blue Laws Research Articles

Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy by Kyle G. Volk (review)

Reviewed by: Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy by Kyle G. Volk Mark M. Carroll (bio) Keywords Minority politics, Religion, Religious freedom, Evagelical reform, Abolition, Legal history, Constitution Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy. By Kyle G. Volk. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. 312. Cloth, $34.95.) This highly original book identifies and gauges the significance of a heretofore largely ignored, popular minority rights politics that arose in the United States in the last two decades of the antebellum period—a tradition that had become by the Civil War, so contends its author, a core component of American democracy. [End Page 508] In chapter 1, Volk describes the impetus for much of the late antebellum activism of the moral minorities he investigates: the reform efforts of the evangelical middle class, beginning in the 1820s and 1830s, aimed at advancing Christianity and improving the morals of the people, such as the campaigns to promote public observation of the Christian Sabbath, temperance, and abolitionism. Evangelical reformers consciously sought to harness their causes to the power of rising popular politics in the era of Andrew Jackson. To do so, they employed both ‘‘moral suasion’’ and the law—a tactic that engendered reaction among widely divergent minorities jealous of their fundamental liberties. Chapter 2 describes how, in the 1840s, Seventh Day Baptists and Jews organized to oppose Sunday closing laws, bringing petitions to legislatures, test cases to the courts, and appeals to the wider public through newspaper publications and other print media. Appellate judges upheld objectionable statutes, typically on secular grounds. But emergent moral minorities succeeded in making Americans consider the proposition that coercive Sunday laws breached constitutional and democratic limits to majority rule. The subject of chapter 3 is the minority campaign in the 1840s against local option liquor laws. Opponents of these measures employed an array of non-partisan, grass-roots political tactics to advance a conception of democracy that privileged the protection of natural and constitutional rights. Resorting to the ideas of such divergent thinkers as James Madison, John Calhoun, and Edmund Burke, and with first-rate legal counsel, they also won decisions in appellate courts with the well-honed argument that local option laws unconstitutionally stripped legislators of the power to fulfill their duties to vulnerable minorities. Chapters 4 and 5 identify evangelical reformers as embattled moral minorities rather than as members of an abusive moral majority. They examine white and black abolitionists who, in the 1840s and 1850s, employed the methods of grass-roots mobilization, as well as more formal ones, to challenge ‘‘anti-miscegenation’’ marriage laws, segregated public schools, and Jim Crow conveyances in a number of northern venues. In defiance of the racist accusation that they had embraced ‘‘amalgamation,’’ these minority champions questioned directly the Jackson-era faith in simple majority rule. Proponents of racial justice made their cases in print, held meetings, reached out to lawmakers, and sponsored test cases bolstered by legal defense funds. Challenges to racial segregation, some [End Page 509] of which were successful, drew on founding-era political ideals of equality and inalienable rights, but persistently articulated an understanding of democracy that respected minority rights and interests. Revisiting questions explored in chapter 2, chapter 6 describes how, in the 1850s, the greatly increased number of German immigrants in the United States revitalized the campaign to eliminate Sunday closing laws as violations of religious liberty and property rights. By the same token, it shows how minority opponents of the 1851 Maine Law and its various incarnations in other northern states succeeded in casting prohibition as a majoritarian despotism that unjustly discriminated against German immigrants and denied liquor dealers and saloon keepers their fundamental right to property and to labor for a livelihood. Of particular interest to the legal historian will be the discussion of an association composed of German and American liquor dealers, distillers, grocers, and brewers in Buffalo, New York, that successfully challenged the prohibition law of that state. The 1856 decision of the New York Court of Appeals, Wynehamer v. The People, overturned the statute on the novel ground that it denied appellants their ‘‘life, liberty, or property without due process of law’’ in violation...

Playing the Creator’s Game on God’s Day: The Controversy of Sunday Lacrosse Games in Haudenosaunee Communities, 1916-24

During the late nineteenth century there was a growing movement in Canada led by Protestant denominations and their organization, the Lord’s Day Alliance, for the national observance of the Christian Sabbath. After several years, the Canadian government enacted the Lord’s Day Act in 1906, prohibiting non-essential activities on Sundays, including sports for financial gain. Sabbatarians across the Dominion attempted to enforce the Sunday law. In the Haudenosaunee communities of Ahkwesahsne and Six Nations, however, Sunday lacrosse games attracted thousands of paying non-Indigenous spectators and continued to take place “illegally” until the mid-1920s. The Lord’s Day Alliance, the attorney general of Ontario, and the Department of Indian Affairs attempted to enforce the law on the reserves. By examining the controversy surrounding the Sunday lacrosse games from 1916 to 1924, this essay demonstrates that the dispute was both a precursor to and a consequence of larger struggles over the future of self-determination in the communities. Furthermore, the struggle played into internal conflicts about Haudenosaunee governance and identity that were themselves triggered by assimilationist policies. It was hardly a coincidence that the dispute coincided with the Department of Indian Affairs’s forced removal of the hereditary council in Six Nations in 1924; rather, the lacrosse controversy was a significant incident in that series of events and provides valuable insights into the Haudenosaunee’s fight for sovereignty in the early 1920s.

Sabbath Observance, Sabbath Innovation: The Hasmoneans and Their Legacy as Interpreters of the Law

Both 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees portray the Sabbath law as a central point of contention during the struggle over Judean law and tradition in the second century bce (e.g., 1 Macc 1:41-50; 2 Macc 6:4-6). The Hasmonean family in particular is at times highlighted as holding the Sabbath in high regard (2 Macc 5:27). In every available source, there is no question of the commitment to the inherited traditions concerning the Sabbath. However, in two passages, 1 Macc 2:29-41 and 9:43-53, the Hasmoneans are portrayed as acting in a way supported by few extant writings associated with Judean legal tradition: they engage in battle on the Sabbath. First Maccabees presents this as innovation on the part of the Hasmoneans. Josephus, who summarizes these events based upon 1 Maccabees, even recognizes this decision as the basis for normative practice (Ant. 12.272-277). As several scholars (e.g., Bar Kochva, Weiss, Scolnic) have pointed out, this event could hardly have been the first time in Judean history the issue arose. They argue against this reading of the sources. This paper contends that the plain reading of the texts is correct and 1 Maccabees is being used as the basis for legal practice in Josephus’ writings.

Revisiting the Sabbath Laws in 4Q264a and Their Contribution to Early Halakha

This article evaluates the reconstruction of 4Q264a offered by Vered Noam and Elisha Qimron. While those scholars find precedent in this scroll fragment for later rabbinic and Karaitic Sabbath prohibitions regarding playing musical instruments, using fire, and reading Scripture, the current article argues that this reconstruction is anachronistic and has insufficient support in the text. Instead, this article supports previous scholars whose reconstructions of this fragment of Sabbath laws include a rule encouraging singing, a prohibition against using fire for cooking but not for other uses, and a requirement to study Scriptures on the Sabbath.

Does Church Attendance Cause People to Vote? Using Blue Laws’ Repeal to Estimate the Effect of Religiosity on Voter Turnout

Regular church attendance is strongly associated with a higher probability of voting. It is an open question as to whether this association, which has been confirmed in numerous surveys, is causal. The repeal of the laws restricting Sunday retail activity (‘blue laws’) is used to measure the effects of church-going on political participation. Blue laws’ repeal caused a 5 percent decrease in church attendance. Its effect on political participation was measured and it was found that, following the repeal, turnout fell by approximately 1 percentage point. This decline in turnout is consistent with the large effect of church attendance on turnout reported in the literature, and suggests that church attendance may have a significant causal effect on voter turnout.

In Defense of Civil and Religious Liberty: Anti-Sabbatarianism in the United States before the Civil War

The decades before the Civil War witnessed a series of battles over the meaning and legal status of the American Sabbath. Scholarship has focused on the Sabbatarian movement, a cluster of evangelical churches that sought to institutionalize the Sunday Sabbath. This article takes a new approach by investigating the anti-Sabbatarian movement. In a series of controversies, from Sunday mail in the Jacksonian era to the running of Sunday streetcars on the eve of the Civil War, anti-Sabbatarians rallied against Sabbath laws as an infringement of civil and religious liberty. Though diverse in orientation, anti-Sabbatarians agreed that religion and politics should be kept apart, and that the United States was not, in constitutional terms, a Christian nation. A study of anti-Sabbatarianism is thus of rich significance for the history of Church-State relations in the United States.

"A Puritan Sunday"

headline -A Puritan Sunday-appeared above the fold on the front page of the Walla Walla Statesman's July 17, 1902, edition. article described a successful campaign by Protestant pastors and temperance ladies to enforce Washington State's long moribund Sunday closing laws. most disturbing line came near the end of the article: Under a strict interpretation of the law, it is doubtful whether Sunday base ball playing within the city limits is permissible.1 Although baseball had long served as the national pastime, Sunday baseball occasionally collided with an even older tradition- the puritan practice of enforcing Sunday closing laws, or blue laws-even in the early days of the new century. Accordingly, a revival of local puritanism in 1901 threatened Sunday baseball in Walla Walla, Washington. incident-which came to involve Bibles, booze, and baseball-threatened two successive baseball seasons, produced a state Supreme Court decision, and gained nationwide publicity before Walla Walla fans of Sunday baseball could finally enjoy their favorite sport in peace.Blue Laws and BaseballBlue laws-local or state laws that required Sabbath observance and prohibited labor or closed businesses on Sunday-developed early in American history. Although Episcopalian Virginia required church attendance in 1610, historian Alexis McCrossen notes, The designation 'blue laws,' which colloquially refers to those laws that regulate morality, suggests Puritan and Pilgrim influence.2 Massachusetts, for example, banned Sunday labor in 1650, while the New Haven (Rhode Island) colony provided the term itself when it printed its theocratic code on blue paper in 1665. Additional blue laws prohibited the sale of liquor, leisure time activities such as horseracing and boxing, and even hunting on Sundays.3Two circumstances-industrialism and immigration-soon undermined the Puri- tan Sabbath's ability to regulate morality. With a six-day workweek, industrial workers saw Sunday as a day of recreation rather than a day of rest. Likewise, a new wave of immigrants brought with them the Continental Sunday when they arrived at Ellis Island. Thus, according to McCrossen, were especially busy in [immigrant commu- nities], for it was then that entire families went to drink beer, visit with friends, listen to music, and dance, just as German and others did in Europe.4Baseball, as the national pastime, quickly experienced the same conflict. National League banned Sunday baseball in 1878, even expelling the Cincinnati Red Stockings after the 1880 season for violating the policy. always contrary American Association allowed Sunday games from its inception in 1882 until its collapse after the 1891 season. When the National League absorbed four AA teams in 1892, it allowed, but discouraged, the option of playing Sunday games. American League allowed Sunday baseball when it began play in 1901. National League eventually surrendered to the inevitable, allowing a full schedule of Sunday games by 1934.5Blue laws, widely established but often ignored, occasionally ensnared individual baseball players. For example, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the arrest, trial, and con- viction of John Powell for playing Sunday baseball in May 1897. In State v. Powell (April 19, 1898), the Court rejected the argument that the law violated the state's constitutional separation of church and state. Court concluded instead, A law enacted for sufficient reasons of a secular nature, as the public health, cannot be held invalid because there is a variety of religious notion upon the subject.6Walla Walla, however, had not had any problems with Sunday baseball before 1901. professional Pacific Interstate League-Walla Walla, plus Pendleton, La Grande, and Baker City, Oregon-had played games on Sundays without criticism or opposition during its only season in 1891. Nearby Milton, Oregon, eight miles south of Walla Walla across the state line, had briefly experienced a different past when an evangelical pastor had convinced the town council to prohibit Sunday games in May 1891. …

The Secularization of Sunday: Real or Perceived Competition for Churches

In a survey of pastors and members of 16 declining congregations in the US and Canada, respondents most commonly identified competing Sunday activities as the primary reason for the decline in Sunday worship attendance. The repeal of “blue laws” that kept stores closed on Sundays has resulted in many more people working or shopping on Sundays, and children's athletic activities are often scheduled on Sunday mornings at the very time when many churches traditionally have provided religious education. Based on a study of 16 mainline and conservative Protestant congregations in decline, this article considers the effect—both real and perceived—of the secularization of Sunday on congregations with declining worship attendance.

COMPOSITIONAL STRATA IN THE PRIESTLY SABBATH: EXODUS 31:12–17 AND 35:1–3

Among scholars who study the composition of the Torah, there is greater agreement in the identification of the Priestly (P) source than of any other Torah source or set of texts. Yet amidst such consensus in its broad identification, considerable disagreements remain with regard to P. The most significant disagreements over- lap and concern the ending of P and the possibility of stratification within it. In this study, I will address especially the latter issue— compositional stratification—with specific focus on the divine revelation of the Sabbath law in Exod 31:12–17 and Moses’s sub- sequent recitation of the divine command to the Israelites in Exod 35:1–3. Many scholars view part or all of these units as secondary, and several have recently ascribed them in their entirety to the Holiness (H) stratum of the P source. Such full ascription to H, which challenges several attempts to identify strata in these units, is part of a trend in recent scholarship to assign more and more pentateuchal Priestly texts to H. Other scholars likewise identify these units as post-P compositions, even if they do not assign them to H in particular. Both of these approaches have significant impli- cations for understanding what the underlying P stratum is—in my view, a fully coherent and independent literary source. In this arti- cle, I will identify an earlier P stratum in both Exod 31:12–17 and 35:1–3 that was subsequently supplemented by H. I will also show how P’s narrative qualities provide the most reliable basis for iden- tifying strata in these texts and that such concern can be usefully combined with stylistic and theological criteria to separate two strata in Exod 31:12–17 and 35:1–3. Finally, I will offer a few comments on the H supplements that I identify.

COMPOSITIONAL STRATA IN THE PRIESTLY SABBATH: EXODUS 31:12–17 AND 35:1–3

Among scholars who study the composition of the Torah, there is greater agreement in the identification of the Priestly (P) source than of any other Torah source or set of texts. Yet amidst such consensus in its broad identification, considerable disagreements remain with regard to P. The most significant disagreements over- lap and concern the ending of P and the possibility of stratification within it. In this study, I will address especially the latter issue— compositional stratification—with specific focus on the divine revelation of the Sabbath law in Exod 31:12–17 and Moses’s sub- sequent recitation of the divine command to the Israelites in Exod 35:1–3. Many scholars view part or all of these units as secondary, and several have recently ascribed them in their entirety to the Holiness (H) stratum of the P source. Such full ascription to H, which challenges several attempts to identify strata in these units, is part of a trend in recent scholarship to assign more and more pentateuchal Priestly texts to H. Other scholars likewise identify these units as post-P compositions, even if they do not assign them to H in particular. Both of these approaches have significant impli- cations for understanding what the underlying P stratum is—in my view, a fully coherent and independent literary source. In this arti- cle, I will identify an earlier P stratum in both Exod 31:12–17 and 35:1–3 that was subsequently supplemented by H. I will also show how P’s narrative qualities provide the most reliable basis for iden- tifying strata in these texts and that such concern can be usefully combined with stylistic and theological criteria to separate two strata in Exod 31:12–17 and 35:1–3. Finally, I will offer a few comments on the H supplements that I identify.

Lawtalk: The Unknown Stories Behind Familiar Legal Expressions (review)

Reviewed by: Lawtalk: The Unknown Stories Behind Familiar Legal Expressions Rebecca Shapiro (bio) Clapp, James E., et al. Lawtalk: The Unknown Stories Behind Familiar Legal Expressions. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011. Pp. xvii + 348. $45.00 ISBN 978-0-300-17246-1 As someone who, when refinancing my house, lost an argument with my banker over the true meaning of "may" respecting a fee in the contract, I picked up the book Lawtalkwith great interest. I did not find in the book an explanation of the nuances of legalese that might have served in my banking dispute— Lawtalkis not that kind of book. And yet I was not disappointed in the slightest, for what I had found was a book with lively and clear explanations of how certain legal expressions developed and have become part of the cultural lexicon of the United States—from the slangy rap sheetto the mundane billable hourto the sinister Jim Crow. The book is the work of four scholars, each contributing his or her particular expertise: James E. Clapp, a lawyer and legal lexicographer, and author of Random House Webster's Dictionary of the Law; Elizabeth G. Thornburg, a professor at SMU Dedman School of Law, and a specialist in legal metaphors; Marc Galanter, an emeritus professor of law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture; and Fred R. Shapiro, a librarian and lecturer in legal research at Yale University and editor of The Yale Book of Quotations. Arranged in alphabetical order, the 77 essays are expansive (the shortest, jailbait, is about a page long; many entries span several pages) presenting a full and fascinating account of the linguistic and social history of each term and its impact on culture and the legal profession. Initials at the end of each entry indicate which author contributed it (the bulk of the content is attributed to Clapp and Thornburg), presumably reflecting the authors' interests and expertise, and yet the book maintains a consistency of voice and approach across all the contributions. As the title makes clear, Lawtalkis not about legal language necessarily—the formal, and formulaic, jargon in contracts or credit card forms—but about law "talk," the "law-related language [that] pervades our everyday speech" (ix). Thus, while some of the terms and expressions whose stories the authors tell do originate in legal usage and largely remain there ( Chinese wall, corpus delicti), most of them reflect the fluid relationship between legal or political contexts and popular or high culture, in which terms arise in one sphere and expand into another. We [End Page 266]act with deliberate speed(from Brown v. the Board of Education) and argue over affirmative action(from the text of a Kennedy executive order). We speak of the CSI effect(television), bemoan blue laws(religion) or joke that we'll kill all the lawyers( Shakespeare). Some of the entries remind us about the legal contexts for terms and expressions that are so familiar that we do not think about their origins, such as aid and abet, eye for an eye, read the riot act, and three-fifths rule—though we may not be able to define boilerplatelanguage, we know it when we see it. But the real treasure here is arguably in the stories that will be unfamiliar to many readers ( badge of slavery, black letter law, and hornbook lawwere new to me); that track how meanings have shifted remarkably ( politically correctwas once a term of approbation); and that debunk false etymologies ( rule of thumbhas nothing to do with domestic violence). The authors demonstrate that we think we know what law talk is, and often we know what it means today, but we don't know how law talk came into being; nor do we know how terms and ideas—even sounds—have changed over time. In each entry the authors scrupulously trace from historical sources (literature, news, legal cases, etc.) a term or expression from its origin to its current use, in a narrative style with vivid details. One such example is the story of wet foot, dry foot...

Religious Participation versus Shopping: What Makes People Happier?

AbstractIn this paper, we first explore how an exogenous increase in the opportunity cost of religious participation affects an individual’s religious participation and reported happiness, using data from the General Social Survey. The exogenous shift in the cost of religious participation is a result of the repeal of so-called blue laws that restrict retail activity on Sundays. We find that repealing blue laws causes a significant decline in the religious participation of women and in their happiness. For men, we do not observe any effect on happiness, while the estimate of the effect on church attendance is similar in magnitude to that for women but is imprecise. We also use repeal as an instrumental variable for church attendance and provide direct evidence that church attendance has a significant positive effect on happiness.

The Case for Sunday Mails: Sabbath Laws and the Separation of Church and State in Jacksonian America

The Case for Sunday Mails: Sabbath Laws and the Separation of Church and State in Jacksonian America

The Historical Evolution of Financial Exchanges

The historical dynamics of financial exchange formation and closure are analyzed for a sample of 19 countries from 1855 through 2010. We focus on the economic, technological, and regulatory factors that jointly determine the observed pattern of financial exchanges and whether those factors are consistent with existing financial theories in a time-series setting. The results suggest waves of formation and closure primarily driven by underlying structural change, not business-cycle fluctuations. We find that exchange births are positively correlated with economic growth and commodity booms, while closures are associated with advances in communications technology, such as telephone and the Internet, and heightened regulation, such as the 1934 Securities Exchange Act and state-level blue sky laws in the United States and the 1963 Stock Transfer Act in the United Kingdom.

Do blue laws save lives? The effect of Sunday alcohol sales bans on fatal vehicle accidents

AbstractThis paper analyzes the effect of state‐level Sunday alcohol sales restrictions (“blue laws”) on fatal vehicle accidents, which is an important parameter in assessing the desirability of these laws. Using a panel data set of all fatal vehicle accidents in the U.S. between 1990 and 2009 combined with 15 state repeals of blue laws, we show that restricting alcohol sales on Sunday has at most a small effect on fatal accident rates. Using American Time Use Survey data, we find no effect of blue laws on the location of consumption, and we show that the group whose drunk driving behavior is most affected by these laws is underage men. Overall, these results suggest that Sunday alcohol sales restrictions have fewer secular public health benefits, at least in terms of vehicle fatalities, than previously believed. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature (review)

Reviewed by: The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature Alan J. Avery-Peck The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, edited by Reimund Bierenger, Florentino Garcia Martinez, Didier Pollefeyt, and Peter Tomson. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2009. 544 pp. $241.00. This volume collects papers presented at a symposium on the study of Rabbinic literature and the New Testament held in 2006 at the Catholic University of Leuven. The focus is the use of Jewish writings in the interpretation of early Christian history and thought. As William Horbury points out in the introductory essay, this is not a new approach; as far back as the Church Fathers, Christian theologians and scholars recognized the value of Rabbinic writings in interpreting New Testament passages. What has changed is the spirit in which this work is done. Generations of Christian scholars, continuing into the past century, denigrated Jewish ideas as fictions that were unmasked by the perfected religious ideology preached by Jesus. But while this polemical aspect of the comparative work has faded, methodological issues increasingly have been recognized. The texts of Rabbinic Judaism derive from the third century and beyond. How on their basis are we to determine what Jews believed and practiced in the first century? And what of the diversity in early Christian thought, not to mention the temporal gap between the historical Jesus and even the earliest Christian writings? While examining Jesus and [End Page 210] the church's Jewish backdrop should be central to understanding Christianity, the approach clearly requires careful methodological consideration. In light of these issues, this collection initially focuses upon methodologies used to determine the history of Judaism in the first centuries. With this methodological foundation in place, the main sections of the book illustrate the light Rabbinic literature—both law (Halakhah) and lore (Aggadah)—sheds on New Testament writings. Horbury's introductory overview, "The New Testament and Rabbinic Study—An Historical Sketch," is followed by these topical sections and articles: Methodology in Rabbinic Studies: Isaiah Gafni, "The Modern Study of Rabbinics and Historical Questions: The Tale of the Text"; Giuseppe Veltri, "From the Best Text to the Pragmatic Edition: On Editing Rabbinic Texts"; Günter Stemberger, "Dating Rabbinic Traditions"; Catherine Hezser, "Form Criticism of Rabbinic Literature"; and Roland Deines, "The Social Profile of the Pharisees." Halakhah: Peter J. Tomson, "Halakhah in the New Testament: A Research Overview"; Lutz Doering, "Sabbath Laws in the New Testament Gospels"; Friedrich Avemarie, "Jesus and Purity"; Thomas Kazen, "Jesus, Scripture and Paradosis: Response to Friedrich Avemarie"; and Peter J. Tomson, "Divorce Halakhah in Paul and the Jesus Tradition." Midrash: Jan Joosten and Menahem Kister, "The New Testament and Rabbinic Hebrew"; Menahem Kister, "'First Adam' and 'Second Adam' in 1 Cor 15:45-49 in the Light of Midrashic Exegesis and Hebrew Usage"; and Miguel Pérez Fernandez, "Midrash and the New Testament: A Methodology for the Study of Gospel Midrash." Other Materials: Martin McNamara, " Targum and the New Testament: A Revisit"; and Crispin Fletcher-Louis, "Jewish Mysticism, the New Testament and Rabbinic-Period Mysticism." The section on methodology sets out how Rabbinic writings can be used for historical study. What sort of history is revealed by the Rabbinic literature (Gafni)? No one today takes at face value the much later Rabbinic texts' claims for events that happened hundreds of years earlier. Still, Gafni notes the general chronological and geographical consistency apparent throughout the Rabbinic literature as well as the many hard-to-account-for parallels between later Rabbinic texts and the much earlier writing of Josephus and the New Testament. This means, for Gafni, that, beyond reflecting on the history and ideology of this literature's own authors and redactors, Rabbinic documents also may at points be useful as evidence for historical events that occurred long before their redaction. While the question of how much we can know remains [End Page 211] hotly debated, important in this section is the setting out of specific approaches to writing the history that must be teased out of the Rabbinic texts. The extent to which Jesus observed, and the New Testament represents, Halakhah as it was set out by the rabbis takes up the next section. Of...

1831.1 The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia

A small distance from the woods, I beheld a party of young men, (the majority of whom I afterwards distinguished to be Market street merchants,) and who styled themselves the Club, a title well answering to its name by the manner in which the party amused themselves in the recreant pleasure of ball....1The Olympic Ball Club of Philadelphia was by far the longest-lived baseball club of the amateur era. Its origins go as far back as 1831, when a group of Philadelphians in their twenties gathered to play Two years later they merged with another group, which was loosely organized and went by the name Olympic. The combined group kept this name and adopted a formal constitution.2 The Olympics were still playing in the 1880s, with the last record of the club as a going concern dating to 1889.The Olympics crossed the Delaware River to play in Camden, Jersey. There is a persistent rumor that this was due to blue laws prohibiting play in Philadelphia, but there is no evidence for such an ordinance. It is more likely that they were driven by the same imperative that would have York ballplayers crossing the Hudson River to Hoboken. There was not yet even rudimentary public transportation. Urban growth pushed open fields beyond easy reach of the center city. Camden was a rural village with ample open space, and conveniently accessible by ferry. There they would remain until just before the Civil War, by which time passenger railroads gave access to outlying regions.The new club had the features that would become the classic model of a baseball club. The early clubs typically were urban organizations composed of young men of the professional and mercantile class. They held sedentary jobs, leading to a desire for exercise. They wished to take their exercise in a social context with their peers. They had the flexibility to make time for the activity, and the financial resources to support it.The Olympics fit easily within the broad pattern of baseball clubs. But the lingering question remains: Do they really count as a baseball club? Traditional histories consider the Knickerbockers of York, founded in 1845, the first ballclub, with the Olympics tending to be dismissed as a town ball club that did not switch to authentic baseball until 1860.There is a kernel of truth here. Modern baseball derives from the version that arose in York City in the late 1830s or 1840s. This New York began to spread outward in the late 1850s. The Olympics switched to the York game in 1860. But what did they switch from?Baseball was brought to America from England in colonial times, played as an informal, unorganized game. It was part of our common English cultural heritage. But this is not to say that is was played in a single version, or went by a single name. Versions were local, in the way that informal children's games even today vary from one locale to the next. It also went by different names, varying by region.3In York the game retained the old English name of base ball. In Philadelphia it went by a newer name: town ball. The origin of this name is unknown. (The common explanation that town ball was so called because it was played at meetings is post hoc speculation with no supporting evidence.) It was the usual term through a wide swath of America, from Pennsylvania west through the Ohio valley and throughout the South. It is entirely likely that the term arose on the eastern seaboard and spread west with white settlement, but there is no direct evidence of this. The earliest citations appear in the late 1830s, appearing within a few years of each other in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Louisiana.4Another misunderstanding is the common assertion that townball was the ancestor of baseball. This misconception arose in the later 19th century, when old-timers in areas such as the midwest recalled that town ball (meaning the old local form of baseball) came before base ball (meaning the York game). …

Sabbath controversy in Matthew

Jesus� attitude towards the Sabbath plays a crucial part in Matthew�s argument. Some scholars argue that Jesus provocatively broke the Sabbath law; however, an attentive reading of the Sabbath controversies revealed a different reality. Matthew strategically places the Sabbath stories after he has firmly stated Jesus� teaching on the continuing validity of the law and the requirement of greater righteousness. The law and the prophets are fulfilled in the Person of Jesus, who demonstrated a fresh approach to Sabbath observance. God�s intention with the Sabbath must also be recognised. Matthew argues not if the Sabbath should be observed, but how it should be done to experience true rest according to the will of God.

The American Association Almanac: A Baseball History Journal, 1902-1952 (review)

Reviewed by: The American Association Almanac: A Baseball History Journal, 1902-1952 Kenneth R. Fenster Rex Hamann . The American Association Almanac: A Baseball History Journal, 1902-1952. Andover, MN: self-published tri-annually. $21.00 per year. Life-long baseball fan Rex Hamann has published The American Association Almanac for the past eight years. With few exceptions, he researches and writes all the articles that appear in this journal. The articles encompass all aspects of the history and culture of the American Association from its origins in 1902 to its first franchise shift in 1952. Now that Marshall Wright's statistical chronicle of the American Association has been published and the minor-league database established, Hamann may expand the scope of his journal to include the later years of the Association (email correspondence, 1-2 November 2009). Hamann's current issue (volume 8, number 1) is subtitled, Louisville's Eclipse Park, 1902-1922 part one, and its one article is devoted to this subject. The article is both more and less than the subtitle suggests. Basing his study primarily on Louisville's two daily newspapers, Hamann discusses the activities of former [End Page 156] major leaguer George Tebeau to locate his American Association franchise in the city in 1902, and Tebeau's search for a suitable site for a ballpark. Tebeau allowed the city's baseball fans to help pick the location of the ballpark in a poll. They could vote for one of three possible sites by stating their preference on a postcard sent to Tebeau's hotel room. In a week, more than 2,500 people cast their ballots and an additional 600 signed petitions favoring a particular location. Tebeau promised that wherever he built the park, it would be modern in every respect. It would have a special no-smoking section and a family section where men would not be allowed unless accompanied by a woman. He also announced that there would be two "ladies days" per week, with the best seats in the park reserved for women. Tebeau eventually selected a site at the intersection of Seventh Street and Kentucky Street for his ballpark. It was an ideal location, close to downtown, near densely populated neighborhoods, easily accessible via several trolley lines, and in the vicinity of the Louisville Slugger bat factory. Work on the new ballpark began in late February 1902 and encountered numerous obstacles. Tebeau fell ill and was confined to his hotel room for several weeks, the weather refused to cooperate, and a group of residents in the neighborhood of the site filed a lawsuit to stop the ballpark's construction. They claimed that baseball was a public nuisance, would attract undesirables, increase noise, and make their homes unlivable. In spite of these challenges, Tebeau and his workers finished the ballpark in time for the opening of the season. Tebeau's Louisville Colonels played their first game at Eclipse Park on April 23, 1902. Hamann illustrates this article lavishly. In addition to a portrait of Tebeau, he includes photos, cartoons, headlines, and drawings from Louisville's two daily newspapers. He reprints the box scores of the first two games played at Eclipse Park. He provides a map showing the location of the ballpark in relation to downtown Louisville and other points in the city. A diagram of the ballpark's odd pentagonal configuration also shows the location of the playing field, clubhouse, scoreboard, main entrance, bleachers, and grandstand seats. Unfortunately, Hamann does not give the park's dimensions until fifteen pages later. Hamann's work is seriously flawed. His story begins and ends in 1902; he discusses nothing beyond the first year of the team's or the park's existence, and even his treatment of that year is incomplete and uneven. He describes the lawsuit filed to prevent the construction of the ballpark and summarizes the closing arguments in the case, but he never mentions its outcome or resolution. He makes passing reference to Louisville's blue laws, which prevented Sunday games, but he provides no further discussion of this important topic in baseball history. Instead of elaborating on these themes, Hamann fills his [End Page 157] pages with trivia. He describes...

The Treatment of Reves 'Notes' and Other 'Securities' Under State Blue Sky Laws

State and federal courts have long struggled with the issue of what constitutes a security. Despite the similarities of state and federal statutory language and the Uniform Securities Act’s interpretive policy, state and federal precedents are hardly interchangeable. Yet, from the genesis of the dual regulatory system, first federal and then state courts have looked to the other for precedential assistance. In the landmark United States Supreme Court decision SEC v. W.J. Howey Co., the Court acknowledged the state source for the federal definition of the catchall term “investment contract.” Additionally, state appellate courts recently followed the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Reves v. Ernst & Young in determining whether the promissory notes at issue were statutory “securities” or, alternatively, “non-securities.” The article addresses the Reves concept of a promissory note as a security and the first trilogy of opinions representing Reves’ state level progeny.