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Dueling Histories: Charles Fairman and William Crosskey Reconstruct “Original Understanding”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Pamela Brandwein
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Extract

Historiography and epistemology are two subjects not often brought together in sociolegal studies. This article takes reconstructions of legal history as a subject of sociological investigation. The institutional “acceptability” of any historical representation is a complex social achievement since there are no objective criteria for verifying historical accounts. I juxtapose two competing reconstructions of Fourteenth Amendment history, by legal scholars Charles Fairman and William Crosskey, and examine how both reconstructions took place with reference to preexisting interpretive frameworks. I also examine the social and institutional settings in which these histories interacted and competed for credibility. The Fairman/Crosskey dispute served to socialize future participants in Fourteenth Amendment debate. With the Fairman/Crosskey exchanges, battle lines were drawn and topics of debate were established.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , 1996 , pp. 289 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

I am especially grateful to Arthur Stinchcombe for his detailed comments on several earlier drafts. I would also like to thank anonymous reviewer #2 for a close reading and a set of very helpful questions and suggestions. Kim Scheppele, Robert L. Nelson, Arthur McEvoy, and two other anonymous reviewers offered comments and advice which have contributed to the development of this essay as well. I also owe special thanks to Lisa Frohmann for a conversation that produced the idea for this article. Jacqueline Battalora has provided careful editorial assistance and has helped significantly to sharpen the ideas presented here. Very generous support for this research was provided by a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the American Bar Foundation.

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