The school was founded in 1921 as an evening school. This manuscript begins with a biographical sketch of the founding Dean, Judge Charles R. Grant. Grant was an underage Union soldier in the Civil War who participated in the capture of New Orleans and whose service was recognized by the U.S. Congress. At a time when less than one percent of the people in the nation had a college degree, he graduated from Western Reserve College (then in Hudson, Ohio) and was admitted to the Bar after studying law with a leading judge of Summit County. Grant proceeded to both practice law, served as the Probate Judge, a judge of the State Court of Appeals, a newspaper editor, and perhaps Akron’s leading citizen. The manuscript recounts the progression of Judge Grant’s career and his Deanship which continued until his death in 1929. Due to his many contacts in the community, he was able to recruit an outstanding faculty which included four individuals who had been president of the Akron Bar Association, the founder of one of Akron’s largest law firms, several judges, and future presidential candidate Wendell Willkie. During Grant’s service as Dean 112 students graduated from the Akron Law School and others, lost to history, studied there in preparation for the Bar to which they were admitted without having completed their degree.

The second Dean was Charles A Neale (1929-1941) who was a pioneer in the field of business education and of colleges of the type that produced Herbert Hoover, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Harvey B. Firestone, and Thomas J. Watson. Neale came to Akron to teach in the Hammel Business College. Nevertheless he had an interest in law, having studied law in a lawyer’s office in Kentucky and earned an L.L.B. from Baldwin College in Berea, Ohio in 1926. Neale was a founder and supporter of the school. During his time as Dean 198 students graduated.

The third and final Dean was Judge Oscar Hunsicker who graduated from the University of Akron in 1919 and the Case Western Reserve College of Law in 1922. Dean Hunsicker had been the Summit County Prosecuting Attorney, a Common Pleas Judge, and a Court of Appeals Judge. He had also been a member of the faculty at the Akron Law School since 1928 teaching a variety of classes.

Though competing with the graduates of more established schools, the graduates of the Akron Law School enjoyed success in the practice of law, in the world of business, and public service. Among those called to public service were one mayor of Akron, at least one member of the Ohio legislature and 24 judges. The school was open to women at a time when many others were closed to them. Several African Americans also graduated from the school. Though the records are incomplete, at least 86 (14%) of the graduates of the school had served in World War I, World War II, or Korea.

This manuscript treats the careers of multiple alumni; contains pictures of the first law school building, the three Deans, the faculty of those who taught from 1931-1936, a picture of the graduating class of 1925, and two pictures of students in the classroom. There are also graphs showing the number of graduates, the cost of tuition and the number of books in the library over time.

The late Portage County Judge Roger F. DiPaolo referred to the faculty as “wonderful teachers” and stated: “I’m beholden to dear old Charlie Neale, Oscar Hunsicker and the rest who made it possible for an immigrant like me to join a noble profession.” It was always a small school never graduating more than 35 students in a year. But as Daniel Webster said in his famous argument concerning the charter of Dartmouth College “it is a small school, but there are those who love it.”

Using a concept that others have applied in other situations, this paper suggests that Chicago was a “outlier” and that this case simply involved reigning in a maverick outlier. While the paper finds Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion (with the exception of dicta on the establishment clause) being the most faithful to the meaning, intention, and public understanding of the 14th Amendment, it also notes that Justice Alito’s majority opinion is the most conservative approach because it follows established doctrine. While the conflicting opinions of Justice Scalia’s concurring opinion and Justice Stevens’ dissent will be perhaps be of interest from a jurisprudential standpoint, the paper sets them to one side as being little more than an articulation of the differences in personal views of the two justices. The manuscript faults Justice Breyer’s dissenting opinion for focusing upon the 2nd Amendment, rather than the actual issue before the court: the effect of the 14th Amendment.

The article also touches upon the problems that arise because the majority of the court has based the Constitutional right to act in self defense upon the 2nd Amendment rather than a variety of other approaches that have or could be taken. The Court’s approach calls into question what should not be a matter of Constitutional dispute: do people have a right to act in self defense if they are not using a gun? The paper also examines other related issues in the application of McDonald to new situations. In the end the author concludes that it is only the common sense of both the American people and their judges that can strike the balance between the right to recognize to McDonald and the important interest of public safety.

Throughout his political career, Chase sought ways to better the position of African Americans. A man of deep convictions, he publicly and consistently advocated voting rights for African Americans as early as 1845. While his political affiliations often shifted, to the end of his life he was consistent in his advocacy of universal male suffrage for African Americans. While his lieutenants were negotiating for his election by the legislature to the U.S. Senate, Chase insisted that part of the “deal” would be the repeal of Ohio’s Black Laws, which discriminated against African Americans.

Chase devoted much of his legal talent to creating a nationwide legal strategy by which slavery would be divorced from the national government and be solely dependent upon local government. His policy was summed up in his antislavery slogan: “Freedom National, Slavery Local.” As Harold Hyman noted, “for a tumultuous one-third of a century [Chase] was the antislavery crusaders’ premier legal strategist.”

In spite of Chase’s egalitarian sentiments on race that our stereotypes suggest would be a hindrance to his political career, he was twice elected governor of the State of Ohio, twice elected to the U.S. Senate, and served as secretary of the treasury under President Lincoln. As Les Benedict has observed, Chase was a serious and important contender for the nomination of president of the United States in every election from 1856 through 1872. As chief justice of the United States, Chase is chiefly remembered for his nationalistic opinion in Texas v. White and his dissent in the Legal Tender Cases. His judicial reputation no doubt suffered from Felix Frankfurter’s conclusion that his commerce clause opinions were of no value to the modern era and the negative assessment of Chase’s chief justiceship by Frankfurter student and protégé Charles Fairman. Modern biographers have offered a significantly more balanced assessment of Chase.

Chase participated in some of the most important constitutional cases of his times, including authoring majority opinions in seven of the court’s major Reconstruction cases. This article explores the influence that Kate Chase may have had on her father’s dissent without opinion in the Fourteenth Amendment case of Bradwell v. Illinois.

"Whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is incorporated as against the States by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities or Due Process Clauses."

This case follows and seeks to build upon District of Columbia v. Heller which held that the Second Amendment protects both the right to self-defense and what has been termed an individual right to bear arms. Of course, Heller’s application is limited to the federal government and has no direct application to the states. Yet all knew, as surely as night follows day, that the question of applying Heller to the states would be the next inevitable step in the litigation.

At one level, Heller was a monumental decision. It was the first case in modern times where the Court squarely considered whether there was an individual right to bear arms under the Second Amendment and it was the first time in which the Court indicated there was a constitutional right to engage in self defense. On the other hand, this case could also be viewed as simply reigning in an “outlier.” Justice Scalia’s opinion, by recognizing a right to have arms but reassuring lower courts that this would not interfere with traditional regulation of those arms, displaced only “outlier” regulations and crafted an opinion which paralleled the views of the majority of people in the nation.

Extending Heller to the states would have both a greater and a smaller impact than Heller itself. It would have a greater impact, because it would apply to all fifty states and encompass more people and a much larger geographical region than Heller which only applies to the District of Columbia and other federal enclaves. Yet it can be said to have a smaller impact because while it may conflict with laws of a city like Chicago, it would be largely congruent with the state laws and most city regulations across the country. Though it is easy to see how the rationale of Heller could be extended and enforced against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, the purpose of this essay is to illustrate how the right to bear arms could be reasonably enforced against the states even without reference to Heller.

It begins with pre-Fourteenth Amendment claims and recounts the actions of the 39th Congress: The Freedman’s Bureau, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Fourteenth Amendment. Several speeches on the Amendment from the Congressional elections of 1866 are utilized, including those of Section 1 author John Bingham, Congressmen Columbus Delano, Rutherford B. Hayes, James Wilson, James Garfield, and Senator John Sherman, as well as Democrats who participated in what has been termed the most racist national political campaign in U.S. history.

By looking at the political shift begun in 1871 and the “long depression” (Panic of 1873), the article documents the reasons why the public understanding of the amendment can best be found during the period prior to ratification. There is a brief examination of Slaughter-House, Cruikshank, Hurtado, and Twinning. It suggests that one of the key mistakes in current scholarship is the assumption that certain rights could only be enforced by the state or the national government. Borrowing from Madison’s concept of “double security” and Pomeroy’s then contemporary treatise, it suggests that many rights can be protected by both.

Utilizing numerous articles from Harper’s Weekly, free speech is used as an illustration of the common, public understanding of the rights the public believe they had and intended to secure as a result of the war. The article explores common mistakes in confusing claims of substantive rights with non-discrimination and equality, noting that the two approaches often overlapped.

Later sections examine the debates involving Charles Fairman, W. W. Crosskey, Justice Frankfurter, Justice Black, Raoul Berger, Michael Kent Curtis, George Thomas and Bryan Wildenthal. The current perils of trying to rely exclusively upon incomplete and inaccurate newspaper data bases is documented.

New light is thrown upon the role of Senator Jacob Howard and his relationship Senator Fessenden, Chair of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Further, responding to another article in the symposium, this work concludes that the only real contemporaneous conflict between enforcing the Bill of Rights against the states and the grand jury was in the single state of Kansas.

Finally, there is a brief examination of the future of scholarship upon these issues.

This preliminary examination of the 39th Congress begins with a look it composition. One of the critical factors was that while the 38th Congress contained a majority of unionists, the 39th Congress contained a super-majority which meant not only that they could override a Presidential veto, but also that they did not need to take the Democratic opposition seriously. This article also identifies the leadership of the 39th Congress. The 38th Congress was composed of 60% of the members who were freshmen and the 39th Congress had 40%of the members who had never been in Congress before. The relatively inexperience of the Congress as a whole would suggest that the senior members – men such as the members of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction – would exercise an enhanced amount of influence.

This study also reports the initial results of a more detailed examination of its membership. A large majority – over 150 – of its members were lawyers. In an era in which only one per cent of the population had a college degree, a small sample of Congressman (those whose last name begins with the letter “D”) 47% were college graduates. Further, an examination of individual Congressmen suggests that many of the college graduates had taken law-related courses in college. Though the apprenticeship model was still the predominant way in which lawyers came to the bar, there were numerous members of the Congress who both studied under the preceptor system and graduated from a law school.

Three of the challenges the 39th Congress faced are examined. The first challenge was dealing with the immense of life and property because of the war. Second, though with the benefit of hindsight we know the Civil War was essentially over after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s Army in April 1865, it was not clear at the time that this was the case. Not only did fighting continue, but individuals and whole military units fled to Mexico. President Johnson did not declare the insurrection at an end in most of the insurrectionary states until April 2, 1866 . President Johnson did not declare the insurrection over it in Texas until August 20, 1866, after three states had already ratified the Fourteenth Amendment.

Third, Andrew Johnson’s commitment to white supremacy mean that he was not just actively opposing the Congress on policy matters, but actually undermining the enforcement of the law and taking actions that, at least indirectly, resulted in the loss of life in the South. Congress responded to these conditions with the extension of the Freedman’s Bureau Act, the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the proposal of the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress’s overall goal – like national goals at the end of World War I, World War II, and the second Gulf War – was to end the war and secure the peace so that there would be no similar war in the future. The last portion of the article draws parallels between other post-war actions and that during Reconstruction and makes connections between the steps taken by the 39th Congress and their overriding goal of securing future peace.

In exploring the meaning of the terms, the article notes it breadth, as articulated by Section 1 author John Bingham (R-Ohio) and Justice Strong in West Virginia v. Strauder. Examples are provided from Congressman Bingham, Justice Bradley, and Judge Thomas G. Jones in his turn of the century decision in Ex parte Riggins.

Insight into how to apply the privileges or immunities clause is taken from Justice Robert Jackson, Justice Joseph P. Bradley and Justice Benjamin R. Curtis. Insight into the possibility that privilege and immunities would change is seen in the agreement between Justice Miller and Justice Bradley that constitutional amendments could change the content of the words. Further examples are given through the adoption of treaties and the 1866 Civil Rights Act.

Because some concern has been expressed concerning the effect of using privileges or immunities clause upon establishment clause jurisidpurence, the history of the “secession” of slaveholders from the national churches and their establishment of pro-slavery churches which prohibited free exercise is examined. The insights provided by this history leads to the conclusion that a principled application of the privileges or immunities clause would not work any change in the current establishment clause jurisprudence.

This approach is also tested with respect to a matter currently pending on certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court: the enforcement of a right to bear arms against the states. The clauses are also analyzed to see how they would better protect the writ of habeas corpus than the inference drawn from Article I, Section 9, Clause 2. Finally, an example of how the use of the privileges and immunities clause might give a more principled and secure protection for established rights is illustrated by the application of the clauses to a “right of family life” that would replace the substantive due process approach used in Moore v. City of East Cleveland.

The article concludes by noting that in spite of Saenz v. Roe, scholars and lawyers have not been very diligent in advancing claims under the privilege or immunities clause and provides reasons why such course should be pursued.

1. Test Oath Cases, 36-37

2. Morrison Waite (1816-1888), 162-163

3. Wirts, 269-271

1. Secession, 352-354

2. Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U.S. 814 (1880), 480-481

Having benefited from the contributions of other deans for so many years, this year I felt obligated to try to make some small contribution to the joint enterprise. My goal in writing this essay is to expand on an area of common interest to many deans: how to strike a balance with family life and work.

1.) The Fourteenth Amendment
2.) Catherine (Kate) Chase Sprague
3.) The Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson