Law and Politics Documents

What the law requires (or allows) is not always fair or just or honorable. Politics is often polarizing. Stories in this collection help us to examine the highs and lows of "the law" over the centuries.

In 1916, congess passed a law forbidding the sale of goods made by children outside the state.  Though the law was overturned it marked an import...

On the 9th of November, 1789, Benjamin Franklin published an "Address to the Public from the Pennsylvania Society for promoting the Abolition of Slave...

Image of a copy of Thomas Jefferson's Declartion of Rights, approved by the Continental Congress and published in Colonial newspapers on October 14, 1...

This image depicts the original document freeing the Amistad captives.  The opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court was written by Justice Story.

This is an excerpt from Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland - James VI's Demonology and the North Berwick Witches - by Lawrence Normand and Gareth Rob...

The governor of Missouri, Thomas Crittenden, was upset that Frank and Jesse James eluded capture.

At the age of 44, Arthur Llewelyn Davies lost his battle with cancer.  This obituary describes both his life and his career in glowing terms. &nb...

This image depicts a Central Intelligence Agency Information Report dated October 14, 1963.  It has this subject: Situation Appraisal as of 12...

Excerpt from a catalog advertising goods used in the slave trade.

This is the second page of Charles Schenck's leaflet opposing the draft during World War I.   The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled that he, a...

Children were committed to institutions, in Ireland, known as "Industrial Schools." Subsequent investigations reveal that children suffered greatly in...

Guy Fawkes—the most-famous of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators—signed two confessions, one after he was tortured and another eight days lat...

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