My Country – John Peter Altgeld On June 26, 1893, Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned three men convicted in the Haymarket Square bombings. Chicago Labor Movement In 1886, Chicago suffered from poor working conditions....
My Country – Poor Laws Justice Douglas spends today’s entry examining a North Dakota Supreme Court case regarding Roy Hulm. Roy Hulm lived in South Dakota with his wife and ten children. However, Hulm...
My Country – James Sommersett Charles Stewart of Boston, Massachusetts, owned James Sommersett. Stewart brought Somerset when he returned to England in 1769. But in 1771, Somerset escaped and Stewart directed that he be sold to...
My Country – Thomas Jefferson and Free Speech On June 13, 1779, Thomas Jefferson wrote an article of faith on free speech. [T]he opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor...
My Country – Wiretapping Justice Douglas spends three days investigating wiretapping. He called wiretapping a “blight on the civil liberties of the citizen.” I cannot believe that Justice Douglas would have liked the PATRIOT...
My Country – You Don’t Have to Salute the Flag On June 3, 1940, the Supreme Court held that a Jehovah’s Witness must salute the flag if required by statute. In Pennsylvania, a state...
My Country – When Oregon Adopted Initiatives and Referendum On June 2, 1902, Oregon amended its Constitution to allow for the initiative and referendum process. It gave people the power to propose and enact...
My Country – Sterilization Laws In 1935, an Oklahoma law provided for sterilization of habitual criminals. A habitual criminal was as a person who was convicted two or more times for crimes “amounting to...
My Country – Copyright On May 21, 1790, President George Washington signed the first copyright law for the new United States. Originally, each state had its own laws, except Delaware. At the Constitutional Convention, several...
