ebooks Kabbalistic Revolution: Reimagining Judaism in Medieval Spain (Jewish Cultures of the World) by Hartley Lachter in History

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During a career as both a lawyer and a Supreme Court justice; Benjamin R. Curtis addressed practically every major constitutional question of the mid-nineteenth century; making judgments that still resonate in American law. Aside from a family memoir written by his brother over one hundred years ago; however; no book-length treatment of Curtis exists. Now Stuart Streichler has filled this gap in judicial biography; using Curtis’s life and work as a window on the most serious constitutional crisis in American history; the Civil War.Curtis was the lead attorney for President Andrew Johnson in the Senate’s impeachment trial; where he delivered the pivotal argument; and his was an influential voice in the pervasive constitutional struggle between states and the federal government. He is best remembered; however; for dissenting in the Dred Scott case; in which he disputed Chief Justice Taney’s proslavery ruling that no black person could ever become a citizen of the United States. In the wake of the decision; Curtis resigned from the court; the only justice in the Supreme Court’s history to do so on grounds of principle. Yet he also clashed with Boston’s abolitionists over enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act; and he opposed the Emancipation Proclamation.In a period when the Constitution was radically transformed from a charter that protected slavery to one that granted all persons equal rights of citizenship; Justice Curtis maintained his faith in the Constitution as an adaptable instrument of self-government and tried to mark out a path for gradual change. Streichler assesses Curtis’s common-law methods in the context of his divisive times and shows how the judge’s views continue to shed light on issues that have become once again relevant; such as the presidential impeachment process and; after 9/11; the use of military tribunals to try civilians.