The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce, and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms

by Alison L. LaCroix

Genres: History, Law, Nonfiction

576 pages, Hardcover

Published May 28, 2024

About the author

Alison LaCroix is Professor of Law and Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Teaching Scholar at The University of Chicago Law School.

Alison LaCroix received her BA summa cum laude in history from Yale University in 1996 and her JD from Yale Law School in 1999. She received her PhD in history from Harvard University in 2007, after earning an AM in history from Harvard in 2003. While in law school, Ms. LaCroix served as Essays Editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1999 to 2001, she practiced in the litigation department at Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. Before joining the University of Chicago faculty, she was a Samuel I. Golieb Fellow in Legal History at New York University School of Law.

Ms. LaCroix's teaching and research interests include legal history, federalism, constitutional law, privacy, and federal jurisdiction and procedure.

Reviews

[Joseph]

I read this book because Professor LaCroix was one of my favorite professors in law school, but I think I learned more about U.S. history generally than I did about the Constitution. Specifically, it was enlightening to the Second Party System and its transition to the Third Party System corresponding to the Civil War. At least until slavery became the dividing issue, states' rights was not seen as partisan. Both Whigs and Democrats used the argument as they saw fit. Even when slavery first emerged in a salient form because of the Fugitive Slave Act did states' rights begin to take partisan valence. But even at first, both sides used the argument, especially, as highlighted in that book, abolitionists in Wisconsin to justify the right not to return escaped slaves.

it seems only after judicial determinations made it clear that the Federal Government would pick the winners in the slavery fight. That's what made the election of 1860 so pivotal--the victory for anti-slavery forces meant pro-slavery states had no recourse but to secede, under the guise of states' rights.

[TENN2ARIZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Interbellum" is a well-researched and written about the development of federalisms (plural) in the interbellum period, say between the end of the War of 1812 and the start of the Civil War. The author carefully notes how the various themes of union, commerce, and slavery, as revealed in various Supreme Court cases, develop the federalism we have today. Although some technical, this is a very good read.