On November 13

On this day in ...

Lucy Addison

... 1937 (75 years ago today), in Washington, D.C., Lucy Addison died, a few weeks shy of 76 years after her birth in Upperville, Fauquier County, Virginia, in the 1st year of America's Civil War. Her home after that war was a farm bought by her father. Eventually she enrolled in Philadelphia's Institute for Colored Youth, graduating with a teacher’s diploma in 1882. Within 6 years she'd been not only a schoolteacher, but also as assistant principal at the First Ward Colored School in Roanoke, Virginia. Later she was made principal of a school for black children that went only through 8th grade; "by gradually introducing new coursework, Addison eventually created a full high-school curriculum." Following her retirement in the late 1920s, she was honored with the opening of Lucy Addison High School, still in existence today.

(Prior November 13 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Read On! Enslaved Women in America

(Read On! ... occasional posts on writing worth reading)

Daina Ramey Berry, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas, Austin, and Deleso A. Alford, Associate Professor of Law at Florida A&M University College of Law, have co-edited what looks to be a groundbreaking new collection of essays on slavery, entitled, Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood, 2012).
New scholarship on the lives and contributions of African-American women is a very welcome addition for legal historians and interdisciplinary scholars given the current scarcity of documented information. IntLawGrrls have celebrated foremothers such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, but we know that so many others were silenced or intentionally erased from memory. Their legacy remains important in understanding contemporary domestic and international debates.
As outlined in the book flyer:

'Slavery in the history of the United States continues to loom large in our national consciousness, and the role of women in this dark chapter of the American past is largely under-examined. This is the first encyclopedia to focus on the daily experiences and roles of female slaves in the United States, from colonial times to official abolition provided by the 13th amendment to the Constitution in 1865.
'Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia contains 100 entries written by a range of experts and covering all aspects of daily life. Topics include culture, family, health, labor, resistance, and violence. Arranged alphabetically by entry, this unique look at history features life histories of lesser-known African American women, including Harriet Robinson Scott, the wife of Dred Scott, as well as more notable figures.'

The new collection should be a rich resource for making the previously invisible, or marginalized, voices of women who were enslaved more central for historical and contemporary legal studies.

On May 13

On this day in ...
... 1861, Queen Victoria proclaimed Britain neutral in America's Civil War:

'[W]hereas hostilities have unhappily commenced between the Government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America ; and whereas we being at peace with the Government of the United States have declared our royal determination to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the contest between the said contesting parties ; and we do hereby strictly charge and command all our loving subjects to observe a strict neutrality in and during the aforesaid hostilities and to abstain from violating or contravening either the laws or the statutes of the realm in this behalf, or the laws of nations thereto, as they will answer to the contrary at their peril.'

British traders who breached the proclamation by choosing sides risked "our high displeasure"; ostensibly, fines or imprisonment. (credit for photo of 1861 British halfpenny depicting Victoria) On the one hand the proclamation, which other European countries followed with their own decrees, granted Confederates belligerent rights and thus allowed British trade to continue throughout North America; on the other hand, it denied them full statehood recognition.


(Prior May 13 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

On April 16

On this day in ...
... 1862 (150 years ago today), slavery was ended in the District of Columbia when President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Compensated Emancipation Act. The law's provision included

'immediate emancipation, compensation to former owners who were loyal to the Union of up to $300 for each freed slave, voluntary colonization of former slaves to locations outside the United States, and payments of up to $100 for each person choosing emigration.'

The United States' capital city commemorates the event, even now; today is DC Emancipation Day. (image credit)

(Prior April 16 posts are here, here, here, here, and here.)

Look On! Redford's GTMO film

(Look On! takes occasional note of noteworthy productions.)

It's 1865, and Washington is at war.
Calamity causes the civilian leader of the military department to round up unusual suspects. Hooded, they're left to lie in cages, indefinitely – that is, until a commission of handpicked brass convicts them at what passes for a trial.
One of them may be innocent.
Getting a sense of préjà vu?
No surprise there: though ostensibly about the War between the States, The Conspirator, the 2010 film this 'Grrl just saw on DVD, bears more than passing resemblance to our own era of what Washington used to call the war on terror.
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton was the man in command after the April 1865 assassination of the Commander in Chief, President Abraham Lincoln. Stanton's push to dispose of accused rebels looks much like the post-9/11 push for rapid punishment of accused terrorists. Speed, and short-circuiting of the judiciary, led to convictions and executions. Yet they also fed lingering questions about the rightness of the results.
In this telling by director Robert Redford, at least one accused conspirator did not deserve the hangman's noose. Forty-two-year-old Mary Surratt (left) may have kept too blind an eye on what was happening in her own boardinghouse. She may have given what today would be called "material support" – to her own son, who could not imagine that the Union would execute a woman, and so remained in hiding rather than exchange his fate for hers.
His error was fatal. His mother was hanged with 3 others. Hers was the 1st federal execution of a woman. (photo credit)
Not long after, trial of civilians like Surratt was deemed unconstitutional, an epilogic sentence reports, in apparent reference to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ex parte Milligan (1866).
The Conspirator is a good film, though Redford does not always surmount the challenge of creating scenes of drama that no doubt were lacking in the actual military commission, a predetermined proceeding that unfolded in a time of far fewer procedural guarantees.
(One awaits the women's studies analysis of the film's metaphorical equation of gender with innocence.)
Surely the film prompts viewers to think about today's military commissions, although its muted box-office reception suggests not many want now to think about such things.
The film offers additional and unexpected food for thought: Stanton insists that an exemplary prosecution not only will punish the actual wrongdoers, but also will prevent further resistance on the part of the still-rebellious. His justification has echoes in rationales advanced for some of the more inclusive international criminal law theories of culpability. The folly of his prediction counsels care in such advancements.

On August 16

On this day in ...
... 1861 (150 years ago today), still in the 1st months of what would come to be called the United States' Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation respecting the 11 states that had joined the Confederacy and were in "insurrection" against the United States. Specifically, he banned trade between the Confederates states and others in the United States until the rebellion ended. The "once bustling cotton trade" between South and North thus was halted. (credit for 1996 photo of cotton plant)

(Prior August 16 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

War memorial

To mark Memorial Day in the United States, we present a postcard sent on Memorial Day circa 1910. (photo credit) It was a time for recollection of the losses of the Civil War now in its sesquicentennial. A time when Americans could not have imagined the global war soon to come, nor another that would follow, let alone the violence of this still-new century.

Go On! Law of War / U.S. Civil War

(Go On! is an occasional item on symposia and other events of interest)

"Law of War in the American Civil War" will be the topic of a panel discussion from 3-4:30 p.m. this Wednesday, May 11, at the Tillar House, headquarters of the American Society of International Law, 2223 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. Cosponsors are ASIL's Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict and the American Red Cros.
In remembrance of the 150th anniversary this Civil War, experts will:
► Present historical vignettes describing the application of the law of war to the Civil War;
► Discuss the contributions of Francis Lieber, author of the Lieber Code promulgated in the middle of the Civil War, to the development of the law; and
► Explore the application of this law to detention operations and guerrilla warfare, and the historical antecedents of military commissions.
Confirmed panelists include Gary D. Solis, Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, and Isabelle Daoust, Manager, International Humanitarian Law Dissemination Program, American Red Cross.
The event is free but space is limited; register here.

On April 12

On this day in ...
... 1861 (150 years ago today), about a month and a half after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as President, the United States' Civil War began when artillery troops in the newly formed Confederacy, comprising states that had seceded from the Union, opened fire on Fort Sumter, a Union base located on an island in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. (credit for photo of ruins of the fort, now a U.S. monument) The fort surrendered within a couple days and remained a Confederate holding throughout the 4-years-long conflict. Today marks the beginning of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War; well worth a read in this vein is How Slavery Really Ended in America, a New York Times Magazine essay that links a little-known event at the beginning of the Civil War not only to the eventual abolition of slavery in the United States, but also to contemporary popular uprisings in North Africa and elsewhere.

(Prior April 12 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

On July 11

On this day in ...
... 1995 (15 years ago today), "the one-time student protester" against the Vietnam War, who'd become the United States' leader 2-1/2 years earlier had become the leader of the United States, established full diplomatic relations with Vietnam. President Bill Clinton hearkened to words once used by Abraham Lincoln, President during the Civil War a century earlier, when he said in remarks delivered at a ceremony in Washington:

This moment offers us the opportunity to bind up our own wounds. They have resisted time for too long. We can now move onto common ground.

The move came more than 2 decades after U.S. troops abandoned what was then the capital city of South Vietnam. Today it's known as Ho Chi Minh City, part of the single country of Vietnam depicted above right. In 2000, as depicted in these BBC photos (credit), the President and the 1st Lady -- today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- would make the 1st official visit to Vietnam in a quarter-century.

(Prior July 11 posts are here, here, and here.)

On July 8

On this day in ...
... 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law An Act to punish and prevent the Practice of Polygamy in the Territories of the United States and other places, and disapproving and annulling certain Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah. (map credit) The statute made plural marriage a federal crime punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Preoccupied with the Civil War, Lincoln chose not to enforce the act. Enforcement would await later, postwar legislation.


(Prior July 8 posts are here, here, and here.)

On June 19

On this day in ...
... 1910 (100 years ago today), the 1st Father's Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington. Among those credited with its establishment (prior post) is a then-28-year-old woman, Sonora Smart Dodd (left), whose father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, had cared for her and her 5 younger brothers after their mother, Ellen Cheek Smart, died in 1898. The hearing in 1909 of a sermon about Mother's Day inspired Dodd's work toward the honoring of fathers as well. "In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father's Day. In 1972, President Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father's Day to be held on the 3rd Sunday of June each year." This year -- not only in the United States, but also in other countries, from Argentina to the United Kingdom -- Father's Day is tomorrow. (It's today in Bulgaria.)

(Prior June 19 posts are here, here, and here.)

On June 4

On this day in ...
... 1917, the 1st Pulitzers were awarded, and the all-male board gave a prize to women won in 1 of the 4 categories. The winning book in the Biography or Autobiography category was Julia Ward Howe (1916), written by Laura E. Richards (left) (credit) and Maude Howe Elliott assisted by Florence Howe Hall. All 3 were daughters of the subject of the 2-volume work, the slavery abolitionist and women's suffragist at right (credit) who, as we've posted: in 1862, wrote "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," an anthem that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln said precipitated the Civil War, then 8 years later wrote an antiwar poem that launched Mother's Day. Ward Howe died at age 91 about 5 years before her daughters earned the prize.

(Prior June 4 posts are here, here, and here.)

Human Rights in My Backyard: Feeling Blue About Being Purple

My home state of Virginia is supposed to be a purple state, but it hasn’t felt very purple lately.
On Wednesday, the Virginia General Assembly voted to restrict state funding for abortions when the health of the mother is at risk. According to the Washington Post:

On a 20 to 19 vote, the Democratic-led Senate agreed to an amendment proposed by McDonnell (R) that would limit state funding for abortions to those performed in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is at risk. Nothing in state law previously prohibited Medicaid-funded abortions in instances when the health of the mother was in jeopardy.

The proposal to restrict state funding came from Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a staunch conservative who took office on January 16, 2010. Abortion rights supporters fear that the measure will affect all Medicaid abortions at public hospitals in the state except those that fit into the narrow exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. This latest insult to women’s rights comes on the heels of McDonnell’s comments about a week ago, in which he declared April to be Confederate History Month and intentionally omitted anti-slavery language in his Proclamation. He infuriated civil rights leaders in the state and attempted to defend his actions by minimizing the role of slavery in the war. McDonnell’s efforts to mobilize the conservative base in this purple state may do real harm in the lives of women and people of color in the state – and may, regrettably move us from purple to red.

On April 13

On this day in ...
... 1828, a 7th child, Josephine, was born into the Grey family (relatives of the Prime Minister who leant his name to Earl Grey tea) in Northumberland, England. In 1852 she married George Butler. Josephine Butler (right) had been a feminist since her 20s, and she and her husband were radicals for their times, opposing slavery and supporting the Union during America's Civil War. After the couple's only daughter died, Josephine began to do charity work. She's best known for her campaigns to improve the health and lives of prostituted children and women, by taking part in international campaigns against human trafficking and by eliminating laws that discriminated against prostitutes. Butler, who chronicled her work in a memoir entitled Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade (1896), died in 1906.

(Prior April 13 posts are here, here, and here)

On March 12

On this day in ...
... 1862, Jane Delano (left) was born in Schuyler County, New York, and soon after lost her father, a casualty of the Civil War. Following a short stint at teaching, she enrolled in the Bellevue Training School for Nurses, graduating in 1886. Her reason?

I think the nurse's profession is a fine one, and I like it.

Delano not only practiced but also taught nursing. She served as superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps from 1909 to 1912, and then founded the American Red Cross Nursing Service, which tended to those injured in World War I. During an inspection of conditions in postwar France, she contracted an ear infection and died in 1919 at a base hospital. She's buried in Washington's Arlington Cemetery.

(Prior March 12 posts are here, here, and here)

On March 3

On this day in ...
... 1820 (190 years ago today), Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, the culmination of a bitter, months-long effort to stave off a civil war over slavery in the United States. Under the agreement Maine was admitted as 1 of the Union's free states (in green at left) and Missouri as 1 of the slave states (in red), but slavery was forbidden in any other territory north of the 36th parallel (in blue). (map credit) The Supreme Court would hold this compromise unconstitutional in the Dred Scott judgment decades later (prior post), and War Between the States would soon follow.

(Prior March 3 posts are here, here, and here)

On February 25

On this day in ...
... 1870 (180 years ago today), the U.S. Senate gained its 1st African American member when Hiram R. Revels (left) was sworn in nearly 5 years after the end of the Civil War. Of the inauguration of the new Mississippi Republican, a barber, minister, and Union chaplain -- who had just overcome a bitter and protracted floor challenge to his credentials -- The New York Times wrote:

The ceremony was short. Mr. Revels showed no embarrassment whatever, and his demeanor was as dignified as could be expected under the circumstances. The abuse which had been poured upon him and on his race during the last two days might well have shaken the nerves of any one.

(Prior February 25 posts are here, here, and here)

On December 13

On this day in ...
... 1818, Mary Todd was born in Lexington, Kentucky. Her mother died when she was 7, and life with her stepmother and 15 half-siblings was difficult, so that she went away to a boarding school, where "learned to speak French fluently, studied dance, drama, music and social graces." As a young woman she lived in Springfield, Illinois, with her sister, the daughter-in-law of a former governor. There she met and married an attorney 10 years her senior; as Mary Todd Lincoln (right) she would become the 1st Lady of the United States, during the Civil War years. Her adult life was marked by tragedy -- not only the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, but also the early deaths of 3 of the couple's 4 sons. In 1875 Todd Lincoln's remaining son committed his mother to an asylum. That contested event is among the subjects of The Crimes of Womanhood: Defining Femininity in a Court of Law (2008). This book by Communications Professor A. Cheree Carlson is summarized in this Legal History Blog post, which also mentions an unrelated case, stating that the other woman and

Lincoln were both committed by male guardians to psychiatric hospitals against their will; juries eventually ruled that they were not insane and released them from their confinement.

Returning to the sister with whom she'd lived decades earlier, Mary Todd Lincoln died in 1882, at age 63, in the same Springfield home where she'd married. She's buried in that city as well, next to her husband.


(Prior December 13 posts are here and here.)

On November 26

On this day in ...
... 1832, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker (right) was born in Oswego, New York. Twenty-two years later she graduated from Syracuse Medical College, then married a fellow medical student, though she kept her own name. The couple's attempt to set up a joint practice failed because patients would not accept a woman as their physician. When the Civil War broke out, Walker, a slavery abolitionist, volunteered as a nurse, the only position open to her. Eventually she became the 1st woman physician contrator, and treated the wonded at battles such as Bull Run, Chickamaugua, and Atlanta. Captured by Confederate troops, she was a prisoner of war for the better part of a year. Walker was a feminist and an advocate for change in "women's dress":

During the war, she wore trousers under her skirt, a man's uniform jacket and two pistols. As an early women's rights advocate, particularly for dress reform, she was arrested many times after the war for wearing men's clothes, including wing collar, bow tie and top hat.

Walker, the only woman ever to have received the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest military award, died in 1919.

(Prior November 26 posts are here and here.)