Explore the controversial legal history of the formation of the United States Prestatehood Legal Materials is your one-stop guide to the history and development of law in the U.S. and the change from territory to statehood. Unprecedented in its coverage of territorial government, this book identifies a wide range of available resources from each state to reveal the underlying legal principles that helped form the United States. In this unique publication, a state expert compiles each chapter using his or her own style, culminating in a diverse sourcebook that is interesting as well as informative. In Prestatehood Legal Materials, you will find bibliographies, references, and discussion on a varied list of source materials, including: state codes drafted by Congress county, state, and national archives journals and digests state and federal reports, citations, surveys, and studies books, manuscripts, papers, speeches, and theses town and city records and documents Web sites to help your search for more information and more Prestatehood Legal Materials provides you with brief overviews of state histories from colonization to acceptance into the United States. In this book, you will see how foreign countries controlled the laws of these territories and how these states eventually broke away to govern themselves. The text also covers the legal issues with Native Americans, inter-state and the Mexico and Canadian borders, and the development of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of state government. This guide focuses on materials that are readily available to historians, political scientists, legal scholars, and researchers. Resources that assist in locating not-so-easily accessible materials are also covered. Special sections focus on the legal resources of colonial New York City and Washington, DC—which is still technically in its prestatehood stage. Due to the enormity of this project, the editor of Prestatehood Legal Materials created a Web page where updates, corrections, additions and more will be posted.

Since its publication in 1996, The Sagebrush State has served as the text for the required course on Nevada's history and constitution given at the state's colleges and universities. The third edition of this work is updated through 2005 to include information on the elections of 2002 and 2004 and two very controversial sessions of the legislature. The full text of the state constitution is provided for reference in an appendix and includes extensive annotations that note and explain amendments and other changes made to the original 1864 document.

Nevada’s politics are in large measure the result of its turbulent history and harsh environment. Michael W. Bowers’s concise volume explains the dynamics of the state’s political formation process, which is strikingly unique among the fifty states. Even today, Nevada is unlike the other states in its politics and culture: economically right, yet libertarian and home to widespread gaming and a 24/7 industry. It has a high percentage of federally owned lands and one of the highest rates of urbanism in the United States, yet is often dominated by rural legislators. This comprehensive and insightful explanation discusses how Nevada’s history has shaped its political culture, and how its government operates today. The Sagebrush State serves as a highly readable and accessible text for the study of Nevada’s political history and constitution, which is a graduation requirement at the state’s colleges and universities. The sixth edition is updated through 2020 and includes the latest changes in the selection process of municipal court judges in the state, the resurgence of the Democrats after their losses in 2016, and the full text of the state constitution with extensive annotations of all amendments to the original 1864 document. It also examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic downturn on the state’s budget.

Federal Ground depicts the haphazard and unplanned growth of federal authority in the Northwest and Southwest Territories, the first U.S. territories established under the new territorial system. The nation's foundational documents, particularly the Constitution and the Northwest Ordinance, placed these territories under sole federal jurisdiction and established federal officials to govern them. But, for all their paper authority, these officials rarely controlled events or dictated outcomes. In practice, power in these contested borderlands rested with the regions' pre-existing inhabitants-diverse Native peoples, French villagers, and Anglo-American settlers. These residents nonetheless turned to the new federal government to claim ownership, jurisdiction, protection, and federal money, seeking to obtain rights under federal law. Two areas of governance proved particularly central: contests over property, where plural sources of title created conflicting land claims, and struggles over the right to use violence, in which customary borderlands practice intersected with the federal government's effort to establish a monopoly on force. Over time, as federal officials improvised ad hoc, largely extrajudicial methods to arbitrate residents' claims, they slowly insinuated federal authority deeper into territorial life. This authority survived even after the former territories became Tennessee and Ohio: although these new states spoke a language of equal footing and autonomy, statehood actually offered former territorial citizens the most effective way yet to make claims on the federal government. The federal government, in short, still could not always prescribe the result in the territories, but it set the terms and language of debate-authority that became the foundation for later, more familiar and bureaucratic incarnations of federal power.

The Oxford ILDC online database, an online collection of domestic court decisions which apply international law, has been providing scholars with insights for many years. This ILDC Casebook is the perfect companion, introducing key court decisions with brief introductory and connecting texts. An ideal text for practitioners, judged, government officials, as well as for students on international law courses, the ILDC Casebook explains the theories and doctrines underlying the use by domestic courts of international law, and illustrates the key importance of domestic courts in the development of international law.

"This book pulls together records from a variety of sources, including information from county court houses, Nevada internet sites, and various lists..."--Page iv.