Maryland State Archives

For the Syllabus and reading material go to the web site, where you will need a user name: judge and a password: judge!.

This course will investigate the history of Maryland law and Maryland courts in the era of the American Revolution. Emphasis will be placed on the judicial implications of writing a State Constitution and its aftermath, encompassing the writing of the first State Constitution to the amendments adopting universal white manhood suffrage. Reading and discussion will focus on the historical context of constitution writing and its consequences as implemented and interpreted by the Maryland Courts prior to 1810. Particular attention will be paid to the people, the ideas, and the structure of the court system designed to implement and interpret Maryland law in the light of what the Constitution makers in 1776 and the legislature thereafter seemed to intend, and what English precedent seemed to demand. Unlike its neighbor Virginia, Maryland did not attempt to completely abandon its English statutory roots.

Participants will be introduced to the resources for the study of Maryland legal history at the Maryland State Archives and on the web.

Reading for the course consists of an introduction to the orgins of Maryland's web-based resources on the Maryland Constitution and :

1) selected chapters from Morris Radoff, The Old Line State, 1971. (distributed free to participants). Please read Chapter III by Philip Crowl, and Chapter XVIII by Gust Skordas

2) Two document packets available on the web, Hesitant Revolutionaries and Writing it All Down. Please read the hyperlinked secondary sources and the documents. You will need a user name: aaco, and a password: aaco# to access some of the material.

3) web resources devoted to the examining the history of the amendments to the First State Constitution and their framers. See also the Archives of Maryland on Line volume devoted to amendments to the Maryland Constitution to the present.

4) a draft article by Dan Friedman on the class web site entitled "Tracing the Lineage: Textual and Conceptual Similarities in The Revolutionary-Era State Declaration of Rights of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware," draft as of 4/4/2002, not to be quoted or reproduced without the author's permission.

5) William Kilty on the applicability of English Statutes to Maryland Law, available from the class web site

6) Mahoney vs. Ashton, 4 H. & McH. 295; 1799 Md. Lexis 8, along with an article on the case by Eric Papenfuse in Slavery and Abolition, vol 15, no. 3, 1994, pp. 38-62., plus the documents and secondary materials relating to the issue of slavery.

1) read and be prepared to discuss, pp. 17-45 in Bogen, placing slavery in Maryland and the United States in the perspective of population distribution.

2) read and reflect on Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence which he sent to James Madison in May of 1783.  What was Jefferson's attitude towards slavery as expressed in the Declaration as he drafted it?  How did Congress change his draft?  What does this draft tell us about the debate over race and the law in America in the 1770s?  Source: Julian Boyd, The Declaration of Independence, Library of Congress, 1943.

3) read and reflect on John Wesley's thoughts on slavery, 1774, most of which is 'borrowed' from a work by an American Quaker, Anthony Benezet.  Methodism was a popular movement in Maryland in the last quarter of the 18th century and Methodists disavowed the ownership of slaves. What were Wesley/Benezet's attitudes towards race and the law?
 

4) read and reflect on the Maryland Gazette article by Africanorum, published in May 1783.  What was Africanorum's attitude towards slavery?  What does it say about attitudes towards race in Annapolis in 1783?  (Source: MSA SC  2311-1-18).

5) read and reflect upon Othello's article in the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser for May 1788.  What was Othello's attitude towards race and his observations on the prospects for the future? (Source: MSA SC 2223-2-1).
 

6) read and reflect upon the following cases:
 
 

a) Butler v. Boarman, Provincial Court of Maryland,  1 H. & McH. 371; 1770 Md. Lexis 5,  and the transcript of the records in the case as forwarded to the Court of Appeals (Source: MSA S 381-52) for

b) Mary Butler v. Adam Craig, 2 H. & McH. 214; 1787 Md. Lexis 5,
 

c) Eleanor Toogood against Doctor Upton Scott, 2 H.&McH26, 1782 Md. Lexis 2,
 

d)  Mahoney vs. Ashton, 4 H. & McH. 295; 1799 Md. Lexis 8, along with an article on the case by Eric Papenfuse in Slavery and Abolition, vol 15, no. 3, 1994, pp. 38-62..
 
 
 

From this reading be prepared to debate the proposition that:

the Declaration of Indpendence unleashed a torrent of rethinking about slavery and about race in America, only to be overcome by economic necessity and the strengthening of racial differentiation and slavery in the laws of Maryland and the Nation.

The morning will be spent on an overview of the history of the law, based upon the reading assigned and a review of the document packets made available via the web.  If you are having difficulty viewing the packet materials on the web, don't be concerned.  We will have access to the web-based materials  in the classroom on a large screen.

The afternoon will be spent resolving ourselves into a court to determine the questions:

Under the Constitution of 1776, who should judge whether or not an act of assembly is unconstititional, and under the Constitution of 1776, was/is Chapter I of the Laws of 1785 unconstitutional under any provision of the Constitution, but especially Article 59 and Article 42 of the Declaration of Rights.

Copies of the Constitution and Form of Government in effect in 1785, and its accompanying Declaration of Rights are attached to the faxed and mailed copy of this memo for your review..

For purposes of the afternoon discussion, please review:

WHITTINGTON vs. POLK [NO NUMBER IN ORIGINAL] COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND, GENERAL COURT, EASTERN SHORE 1 H. & J. 236; 1802 Md. LEXIS 1

THE STATE vs. DASHIELL [NO NUMBER IN ORIGINAL] COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND 6 H. & J. 268; 1824 Md. LEXIS 20

CRANE vs. MEGINNIS [NO NUMBER IN ORIGINAL] COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND, EASTERN SHORE 1 G. & J. 463; 1829 Md. LEXIS 38

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND vs. JOSEPH B. WILLIAMS.  [NO NUMBER IN ORIGINAL] COURT OF APPEALS OF MARYLAND 9 G. & J. 365; 1838 Md. LEXIS 1
 

These cases are readily available from Lexis and Westlaw.  Attention should be paid to their pronouncements on Judicial Review.
 

In addition to the Declaration of Rights and Constitution as it was in effect in 1776, I am also attaching the text of Chapter I of the laws of 1785 and the original dissent of Gabriel Duvall in Whittington v Polk from our collections.