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A Global Context: The New York State Constitutional Convention of 1938

October 18, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsUncategorized, Blog, Constitutional Conventions in New York, New York Legal History

Editor’s Note: Whether or not New York State should have a new constitutional convention is on the voting ballot this November. As such, the Historical Society took a look back on the history of the State’s Constitution with the April 18, 2017 program Constitutional Conventions in New York: Past, Present, and Future. In this article, Professor Peter J. Galie, who opened the program with his lecture “New York State Constitutional Conventions: Back to the Future,” and writing partner Christopher Bopst revisit the Constitutional Convention of 1938.

An expanded version of this article first appeared in New York Archives Magazine, Peter J. Galie and Christopher Bopst, Summer 2017, Volume 17, Number 1, pp. 24-27. New York State Archives: archives.nysed.gov | Archives Partnership Trust: nysarchivestrust.org | New York Archives Magazine: nysarchivestrust.org/magazine/archivesmag_about

Image: “He Wants It Short and Plain” by Jerry Costello. Archives: L0096-78 Newspaper clippings file 1938.

Secretary of State Edward Flynn called the convention to order on April 5, 1938, amid inauspicious economic and political developments. The country was in the midst of an economic downturn that had started in May 1937. Unemployment, which had declined significantly after 1933, had increased to around 20 percent. The number of democracies throughout the world had fallen to pre-World War I levels.

The previous debate over the call for a convention was notable for the absence of issues that might have provided an agenda. But Flynn’s opening remarks sounded the note that would provide the convention with a theme and purpose:

You are assembled during a most critical time in the world’s history, when new forms of government are being created throughout the world and democratic principles are being forgotten.

The constitutional convention held in New York State in 1938, the state’s ninth, was a “people’s convention.” The convention was called pursuant to the provision of the state constitution mandating that every twenty years citizens be asked whether they wish to convene a convention to revise and amend the constitution. It was a people’s convention in another sense: Neither major party addressed the question in their respective platforms.

Voters approved the convention by a margin of 1,413,604 to 1,190,275. Discouraging for those who valued the exercise in popular sovereignty provided by the automatic call provision was the startlingly large number of voters who ignored the proposition. The total vote on the convention question was three million less than that cast in the governor’s race on the same ballot.

Changes Coming to the David A. Garfinkel Essay Scholarship

October 11, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsUncategorized, Blog, Education, Garfinkel Essay Scholarship

The 2017-2018 cycle of the David A. Garfinkel Essay Scholarship has begun, and we’re bringing some changes to the competition! After 11 years, the Society has made the difficult decision to restructure elements of the Garfinkel Essay Scholarship, but keep some the same!

A Society Trustee developed the resources for the previous 10 cycles and decided to take a step back to let a new person manage the preparation of Scholarship materials. She has even written an article about the importance of the Scholarship for our blog. This led to the creation of the Historical Society of New York Courts Fellowship. The Fellow’s duties include developing the topic and questions, preparing materials for the Scholarship website, and conducting teacher and student workshops.

Luckily, we were able to find the perfect person for our first Society Fellow: Christine Mooney, Esq.! Christine is an attorney and Associate Professor in the CUNY Community College system. She has written for our blog before about the impact of the Scholarship on not only her students but also her professional work (Read more here). As someone deeply invested in the success of the Garfinkel Essay Scholarship, Professor Mooney developed this year’s topic: Stolen Art: From the Holocaust to the Present – Role of the Courts in Restoring Cultural Objects to Their Rightful Owners. Christine truly understands how to integrate the Scholarship into course curriculum and connect the Scholarship’s topic to a variety of disciplines while still relating to the rich legal history of New York State. All resources are now available on the Garfinkel Scholarship section of our website.

Teachable Moments

September 6, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsUncategorized, Blog, Education, Judith S. Kaye Fellow1 Comment

This article was written by Dr. Julia Rose Kraut. Dr. Kraut is the inaugural Judith S. Kaye Teaching Fellow and taught “Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, and the Empire State” on the BHSEC Queens campus in spring of 2017. She also taught an adapted version to eighth graders at George Jackson Academy. She is a legal historian living in New York City and earned her J.D. from American University Washington College of Law and her Ph.D. in History from New York University. Julia is currently writing a book on the history of ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States, which is under contract to Harvard University Press.

Photo: New York County Courthouse

In my last blog post, I recounted meeting Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye when I was an undergraduate student at Columbia University, and how this chance meeting inspired me to pursue my interest in law and history and become the inaugural Judith S. Kaye Teaching Fellow for the Historical Society of the New York Courts. I also discussed the course I developed for the Society, “Civil Rights, Civil Liberties, and the Empire State,” and teaching this course at Bard High School Early College in Manhattan in Spring 2016. In this blog post, I would like to describe my experiences teaching this same course to students at Bard High School Early College in Queens in Spring 2017.

The semester began the first week of February, shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, and it ended in early June. Those four and a half months proved to be an incredibly turbulent period for the nation, and one that presented many challenges, as well as many teachable moments that demonstrated the importance of studying law and history. At breakneck speed, each week appeared to bring many of the course’s themes to the forefront of the public’s attention. Newspapers, social media, and cable television news programs were filled with discussion and debate on the important function of each branch of government and the limits on the power exercised by each branch, the rule of law, federalism, immigration and nativism, freedom of speech and of the press, as well as the role of public protest, legislation, and the courts in civil rights and civil liberties history.

My class consisted of a great group of hard-working students who brought their questions, concerns, and personal experiences to the classroom. It was a small group, but a diverse one. The students all came from different backgrounds, economic statuses, races, sexual orientations, religions, ethnicities, and neighborhoods in New York City. Each student provided a unique perspective on the cases and controversies we discussed in class. All expressed a desire to learn more about civil rights and civil liberties legal history to better understand how this history had shaped their lives and led to political and social change.

It’s Possible! Reflections from a Garfinkel Essay Scholarship Mentor

August 30, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsUncategorized, Blog, Education, Garfinkel Essay Scholarship1 Comment

This article was written by Charles Scruggs, a professor of history at Genesee Community College who has mentored many Garfinkel Essay Scholarship participants. He is a 2015 recipient of a SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.

We have announced the topic for the 2018 Garfinkel Essay Scholarship, please click here to learn more.

Photo: Anna Lewis, accepting her 2nd SUNY Prize at the NY Court of Appeals Law Day Ceremony. Prof. Scruggs mentored all three SUNY winners. Image courtesy of Lisa Bohannon at NY Court of Appeals.

Sixty years ago, Twelve Angry Men appeared for the first time on the silver screen. Despite riveting performances by such titans as Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb, its commercial performance fell flat. Perhaps the dialogue-driven film was regarded as too quaint by a movie-going public with a taste for swamp creatures and rebels without a cause. Today, however, the film is rightfully accorded a place in the pantheon of American cinema. It has even been cited by Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor as a source of inspiration as she contemplated potential career paths.

For ninety minutes, we are transfixed by the interactions of twelve jurors whose predilections and prejudices are ingeniously revealed. At the end of the story, something else is made known to us: the names of Juror 8 and Juror 9 — Davis and McCardle. We never learn the names of the other ten jurors. The name of the young defendant accused of stabbing his father to death is likewise shrouded in mystery. I find the closing moments of Twelve Angry Men fitting and poignant. In that final, brief exchange, the larger than life protagonist is returned to the human scale as he bids adieu to his wise and wizened ally. As the two men head off to destinations unknown, dwarfed by the city’s immense steel structures, we cannot help but feel a sense of nobility in the seemingly quotidian experience of jury duty.

I have occasion to share these thoughts with you not because a cherished film is celebrating its sixtieth anniversary, but rather because a cherished essay scholarship is celebrating its tenth. I can still picture Karen Wicka, an attorney turned criminal justice instructor, pleading her case as she distributed a promotional flyer at the end of an interminably long faculty meeting. We all did our due diligence, solemnly nodding our heads and scribbling down due dates. I was just praying that the Dean would not ask me to deliver an improptu dissertation on the legal aspects of the Erie Canal’s construction — the theme of the essay contest. It would not have been an outlandish request. After all, I did teach college-level history, political science, and geography courses in western New York. In truth, it’s more likely that my colleagues were doing the praying. The hour was getting late, and I couldn’t be trusted to take the Fifth.

Education Projects at the Historical Society

August 23, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsJudith S. Kaye Fellow, New York Legal History, Uncategorized, Blog, Bard High School Early College, Education

Photo: Students from Bard High School Early College on a courthouse tour.

In the early 2010s, the Society partnered with Bard High School Early College (BHSEC), a public school with campuses in Manhattan and Queens which is operated with Bard College, to prepare curricula for both middle school students at Bard Early College Academy (BECA) and high school students at BHSEC. The curricula aim to teach students about the role of the courts in society, the importance of both state and federal constitutions, and how the courts, judges, and lawyers contribute to the administration of justice.

The initial partnership between the Society and BHSEC blossomed and grew to feature a variety of courses within a central theme of bringing concepts of justice and the law into the classroom. We currently have nine courses and counting! Each instructor prepares syllabi, lesson plans, and/or course materials which we then share on our website to help other educators get ideas and concrete ways to incorporate legal history into their lessons.

In 2015, the Society and BHSEC took the partnership a step further with the establishment of the Judith S. Kaye Teaching Fellowship, honoring the founder of the Historical Society. The Fellowship provides for the hiring of a faculty member or visiting scholar who will develop and teach a semester-long elective on the themes that include justice and the courts, legal history in New York State, New York State constitutional law, or a topic that relates more broadly to the role of the courts in establishing and maintaining democracy in New York State and the United States.

A Return to the Great Hall at Cooper Union: Abraham Lincoln, Harold Holzer, and the Power to Transform “a New Birth of Freedom”

August 14, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsUncategorized, Blog, Public Events

This article was written by our friends at the New York State Archives Partnership Trust. For more information, go to www.nysarchivestrust.org.

Celebrating 2017 Empire State Archives & History Award Honoree

Harold Holzer

Hosted by Tony Award-nominated actor Stephen Lang

Wednesday, September 6th at 7:00 PM

“Only at the Great Hall of Cooper Union can audiences so easily inhale Lincoln’s presence too — there to imagine not the dying but the living man, not the bearded icon of myth but the clean-shaven, fresh-voiced political original who conquered all New York here on the way to the White House and immortality.” —Harold Holzer

Photo of Abraham Lincoln at Cooper Union, February 27, 1860. From NYS Archives Series A3045-78.

On February 27, 1860, Abraham Lincoln addressed a New York audience at The Cooper Union, delivering what is often considered to be the most important speech of his 1860 presidential campaign. Historians credit this speech with Lincoln securing the Republican Party nomination and his victory in the 1860 election.

“Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. There is a judgement and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling — that sentiment — by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it.” —Abraham Lincoln, February 27, 1860.

It is only fitting that nationally prominent Lincoln Scholar Harold Holzer, 2017 Empire State Archives & History Award honoree, takes the stage in the Great Hall with actor and friend Stephen Lang to explore Mr. Holzer’s decorated career as one of the country’s leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era. With over 50 published books and countless articles and awards — including the 2015 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize — this evening of conversation and friendship promises to be informative and engaging.

A Tale of Two Foundings: New York’s First Constitution 1777 and the Arab Spring 2011

July 19, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsUncategorized, Blog, Constitutional Conventions in New York, New York Legal History

Editor’s Note: Whether or not New York State should have a new constitutional convention is on the voting ballot this November. As such, the Historical Society took a look back on the history of the State’s Constitution with the April 18, 2017 program Constitutional Conventions in New York: Past, Present, and Future. To start this series of posts about the history of New York’s Constitutional Conventions, Professor Peter J. Galie, who opened the program with his lecture New York State Constitutional Conventions: Back to the Future, compares and contrasts the successes and failures of two foundings.

Peter J. Galie, author of this article, is Professor Emeritus at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of numerous articles in the area of state constitutional law and three books: Ordered Liberty: A Constitutional History of New York (Fordham University Press, 1996); The New York Constitution: A Commentary, with Christopher Bopst, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2012); and co-editor with Christopher Bopst and Gerald Benjamin, New York’s Broken Constitution: The Crisis in State Government and the Path to Renewed Greatness (SUNY Press, 2016). He is currently serving on a Task Force on the Judiciary Article of the State Constitution formed by Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, Janet DiFiore.

Photo: “Announcing the Founding,” Secretary of the 1777 Convention, Robert Benson, mounted a barrel in front of the courthouse and read the document to assembled citizens.

When establishing and gaining consent for a new regime, “a new order of the ages,” you need to have a people who are already committed to the principles the regime espouses or are amenable to persuasion and commitment. This is the paradox of founding. Plato, Rousseau, Machiavelli, and the authors of Federalist grappled with this conundrum. Is it possible to begin democratically when there is no tradition of democracy? Is it possible to found a regime on principles the regime wishes to establish?

We think of the national Constitution as the first constitutional republic founded on the consent of the people and embodying principles and values that trace their origins to the Magna Carta in 1215.

But it was not the first. The first fruits of the American Revolution were the state constitutions adopted between 1776 and 1780. The founding of independent constitutional republics began in 1776, not in 1787. New York adopted its first constitution on April 20, 1777. The Provincial Congress that brought forth this founding renamed itself “The Convention of the Representatives of the State of New York.”

Calendar Feature: July 2017 — Dame Agatha Christie (1890–1976)

July 5, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsUncategorized, Blog, Society Calendar

After the Fourth of July weekend, we’re getting back into the swing of things at the Historical Society. Calendar production for 2018 has just begun, so please enjoy the July feature from this year’s edition. Who knew Agatha Christie was involved in a case in the New York Courts? Read below for more about Hicks v. Casablanca Records.

Dame Agatha Christie, one of the best-selling novelists of all time with works translated into over 100 languages, made her appearance in New York law in Hicks v. Casablanca Records:

In the winter of 1977, defendants in the movie case began the filming of a movie entitled, “Agatha” which, like the book in the related case, presents a fictionalized account of a true incident which occurred during the life of Mrs. Christie…

It appears that on or about December 4, 1926, Mrs. Christie, then married to Colonel Archibald Christie, disappeared from her home in England. This disappearance was widely-publicized and, although a major effort was launched to find her, everyone was at a loss to explain her disappearance. However, eleven days after she was reported missing, Mrs. Christie reappeared, but her true whereabouts and the reasons for her disappearance are, to this day, a mystery.

In view of the death of Mrs. Christie, the public may never know the facts surrounding this incident, but should the defendants prevail herein, the public will have a fictionalized account of this disappearance as set forth in the movie… In each instance, Mrs. Christie is portrayed as an emotionally unstable woman, who, during her eleven-day disappearance, engages in a sinister plot to murder her husband’s mistress, in an attempt to regain the alienated affections of her husband. Given this portrayal of their decedent and assignor, plaintiffs, mindful of the personal nature of defamation and privacy actions, bring the instant actions [for injunctive relief] alleging unfair competition and infringement of the right of publicity.[1]

The court denied the motion for a preliminary injunction, finding no right of privacy “where a fictionalized account of an event in the life of a public figure is depicted in a novel or a movie, and in such novel or movie it is evident to the public that the events so depicted are fictitious.”

Her disappearance remains a mystery, but some have speculated…

[1] 464 F. Supp. 426, 429 (S.D.N.Y. 1978)

Katherine “Kate” Stoneman: Raising the Bar for Women

June 21, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsJudicial Notice, New York Legal History, Women & the Law, Uncategorized, Blog

This article was written by Michelle Henry, who has served as Chautauqua County Historian/Records Management Coordinator since 2000. Ms. Henry is certified as a New York State Registered Historian, received the 2010 Wheeler B. Melius Award for outstanding service to records management in NYS, and the 2011 Julia Reinstein Historian Award for Excellence. This post serves as an introduction to Ms. Henry’s in-depth article “Katherine ‘Kate’ Stoneman: Raising the Bar for Women” in Issue 12 of The Historical Society of the New York Courts’ Judicial Notice, a journal of articles of historical substance and scholarship that uniquely focuses on New York legal history. This latest issue of Judicial Notice has already been shipped out only to Society Members. Don’t miss out and Join the Society!

If you have received Judicial Notice, we would like to hear your thoughts about all of the wonderful articles, including this one. What new insights did you learn from the articles? What topics are you looking forward to in the next issue? Comment below!

Photo: Portrait of Kate Stoneman, courtesy of the Jamestown City Historian’s Office.

Kate Stoneman was born in the western frontier county of Chautauqua, New York in 1841, a time when women didn’t have many legal rights or career opportunities. But with the support of her “liberal-minded” parents, she pursued an education and a career previously unattainable for women, and was involved in several of the greatest reforms of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Stoneman was a teenager when Susan B. Anthony held a Women’s Right Convention in the County Courthouse at Mayville, NY in 1854. A county political equality committee was formed, and later became the largest such committee in the state. The women’s rights convention was covered in the local newspapers, which may have been an early source of inspiration for Kate. She undoubtedly had a thirst for knowledge, because she read and re-read one of the few books that her family owned – a musty old law book.

Stoneman pursued a career in teaching at the Albany Normal School, and utilized her familiarity with legal terminology to work as a copyist for a court reporter to support herself. Upon graduation, Stoneman began a career teaching penmanship and drawing. Weightier subjects in science and math were considered too rigorous for a woman’s constitution and were believed to render a woman sterile. Women who rebelled against Victorian ideas of domesticity risked being declared insane, and leading psychiatrists claimed that cure for hysteria (a female malady) for an unmarried woman was the necessary male dominance of marriage.

When Did Slavery End in New York?

June 7, 2017October 24, 2018Historical Society of the New York CourtsNew York Legal History, Uncategorized, Blog, Judicial Notice

This article was written by Craig A. Landy, a partner at NYC firm Peckar & Abramson, PC. Mr. Landy talks more extensively about this topic in Issue 12 of The Historical Society of the New York Courts’ Judicial Notice, a journal of articles of historical substance and scholarship that uniquely focuses on New York legal history. This latest issue of Judicial Notice is ready to be shipped out and is only available to Society Members. Don’t miss out and Join the Society!

Photo: The Fifteenth Amendment. Celebrated May 19, 1870.
Pub. by Thomas Kelly, New York, c. 1871, showing the grand celebratory parade in Baltimore. A similar parade in New York City on April 8, 1870 drew over 1,500 spectators and over 7,000 participants. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-pga-01767

When did slavery end in New York State? That’s not an easy question to answer. In 1799, New York gradually freed future generations who would otherwise have been born into slavery, but left enslaved thousands born before 1799. It was not until March 31, 1817 that the New York legislature ended two centuries of slavery within its borders, setting July 4, 1827 as the date of final emancipation and making New York the first state to pass a law for the total abolition of legal slavery. When Emancipation Day finally arrived, the number of enslaved men and women freed was roughly 4,600 or 11% of the black population living in New York and the black community and its supporters held joyous celebrations and parades throughout the state.

Slavery existed in New York State from colonial times through the creation of the modern state. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and other prominent New Yorkers owned slaves at one time, but the more reform-minded of these formed organizations to end slavery in New York, such as the New York Manumission Society. New York’s free African-American community also led the anti-slavery movement through activist ministers and tireless black abolitionists.