Sunflower Justice: A New History of the Kansas Supreme Court

Until recently, American legal historiography focused almost solely on national government. Although much of Kansas law reflects U.S. law, the state court’s arbitrary powers over labor-management conflicts, yellow dog contracts, civil rights, gender issues, and domestic relations set precedents that reverberated around the country. Sunflower Justice is a pioneering work that presents the history of a state through the use of its supreme court decisions as evidence.

 

R. Alton Lee traces Kansas’s legal history through 150 years of records, shedding light on the state’s political, economic, and social history in this groundbreaking overview of Kansas legal cases and judicial biographies. Beginning with the territorial justices and continuing through the late twentieth century, R. Alton Lee covers the dispossession of Native Americans’ land, the growth and impact of labor unions, antimonopoly cases against railroad and mining companies, a nine-year state ban on the movie Birth of a Nation, and implications and effects of desegregation, as well as the shooting of Dr. George Tiller for performing legal abortions. Because judicial decisions are not made in a vacuum, Lee presents each of the justices in the context of the era and their personal experiences before examining how their decisions shaped Kansas political, economic, social, and legal history.

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Sunflower Justice: A New History of the Kansas Supreme Court

Until recently, American legal historiography focused almost solely on national government. Although much of Kansas law reflects U.S. law, the state court’s arbitrary powers over labor-management conflicts, yellow dog contracts, civil rights, gender issues, and domestic relations set precedents that reverberated around the country. Sunflower Justice is a pioneering work that presents the history of a state through the use of its supreme court decisions as evidence.

 

R. Alton Lee traces Kansas’s legal history through 150 years of records, shedding light on the state’s political, economic, and social history in this groundbreaking overview of Kansas legal cases and judicial biographies. Beginning with the territorial justices and continuing through the late twentieth century, R. Alton Lee covers the dispossession of Native Americans’ land, the growth and impact of labor unions, antimonopoly cases against railroad and mining companies, a nine-year state ban on the movie Birth of a Nation, and implications and effects of desegregation, as well as the shooting of Dr. George Tiller for performing legal abortions. Because judicial decisions are not made in a vacuum, Lee presents each of the justices in the context of the era and their personal experiences before examining how their decisions shaped Kansas political, economic, social, and legal history.

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Sunflower Justice: A New History of the Kansas Supreme Court

Sunflower Justice: A New History of the Kansas Supreme Court

by R. Alton Lee
Sunflower Justice: A New History of the Kansas Supreme Court

Sunflower Justice: A New History of the Kansas Supreme Court

by R. Alton Lee

Hardcover

$65.00 
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Overview

Until recently, American legal historiography focused almost solely on national government. Although much of Kansas law reflects U.S. law, the state court’s arbitrary powers over labor-management conflicts, yellow dog contracts, civil rights, gender issues, and domestic relations set precedents that reverberated around the country. Sunflower Justice is a pioneering work that presents the history of a state through the use of its supreme court decisions as evidence.

 

R. Alton Lee traces Kansas’s legal history through 150 years of records, shedding light on the state’s political, economic, and social history in this groundbreaking overview of Kansas legal cases and judicial biographies. Beginning with the territorial justices and continuing through the late twentieth century, R. Alton Lee covers the dispossession of Native Americans’ land, the growth and impact of labor unions, antimonopoly cases against railroad and mining companies, a nine-year state ban on the movie Birth of a Nation, and implications and effects of desegregation, as well as the shooting of Dr. George Tiller for performing legal abortions. Because judicial decisions are not made in a vacuum, Lee presents each of the justices in the context of the era and their personal experiences before examining how their decisions shaped Kansas political, economic, social, and legal history.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780803248410
Publisher: Nebraska
Publication date: 03/01/2014
Series: Law in the American West
Pages: 392
Product dimensions: 6.40(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

R. Alton Lee is a professor emeritus of American history at the University of South Dakota. He is the author of several books, including Farmers vs. Wage Earners: Organized Labor in Kansas, 1860–1960 (Nebraska, 2009) and The Bizarre Careers of John R. Brinkley.


 

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations viii

Preface ix

Introduction: Ad Astra per Aspera 1

1 The Kingman Court 13

2 The Chief Justice as Politician 51

3 The Populist Interlude 87

4 The Grand Old Man's Court 125

5 Reaction in the Roaring Twenties 161

6 The Devastating Depression 194

7 The Revised Selection System 229

8 Modernizing the Law 264

9 Retreat to Conservatism 298

Conclusion 331

Appendix: Kansas Supreme Court Justices 339

Notes 341

Glossary 369

Index to Federal Cases Cited 371

Index to State Cases Cited 373

Index 381

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