Electoral Count Of 1877 Proceedings Of The Electoral Commission And Of The Two Houses Of Congress In Joint Meeting Relative To The Count Of Electoral Votes Cast December 1876 For The Presidential Term Commencing March 4 1877

Examines more than fifty significant congressional debates, arranged in chronological order and accompanied by introductory essays that outline the opposing forces and historical context of each debate.

The first full biography of the southern U.S. Supreme Court justice who championed both the U.S. Constitution and states’ rights The life of John Archibald Campbell reflects nearly every major development of 19th-century American history. He participated either directly or indirectly in events ranging from the Indian removal process of the 1830s, to sectionalism and the Civil War, to Reconstruction and redemption. Although not a defender of slavery, he feared that abrupt abolition would produce severe economic and social dislocation. He urged southerners to reform their labor system and to prepare for the eventual abolition of slavery. In the early 1850s he proposed a series of reforms to strengthen slave families and to educate the slaves to prepare them for assimilation into society as productive citizens. These views distinguished him from many southerners who steadfastly maintained the sanctity of the peculiar institution. Born and schooled in Georgia, Campbell moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the early 1830s, where he joined a successful law practice. He served in the Alabama legislature for a brief period and then moved with his family to Mobile to establish a law practice. In 1853 Campbell was appointed an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. His concurring opinion in the Dred Scott case in 1857 derived not from the standpoint of protecting slavery but from an attempt to return political power to the states. As the sectional crisis gathered heat, Campbell counseled moderation. He became widely detested in the North because of his defense of states’ rights, and he was distrusted in the South because of his moderate views on slavery and secession. In May 1861 Campbell resigned from the Court and later became the Confederacy's assistant secretary of war. After the war, Campbell moved his law practice to New Orleans. Upon his death in 1889, memorial speakers in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans recognized him as one of the nation's most gifted lawyers and praised his vast learning and mastery of both the common law and the civil law. In this first full biography of Campbell, Robert Saunders, Jr., reveals the prevalence of anti-secession views prior to the Civil War and covers both the judicial aspects and the political history of this crucial period in southern history.

Special rules enable the Senate to act despite the filibuster. Sometimes. Most people believe that, in today's partisan environment, the filibuster prevents the Senate from acting on all but the least controversial matters. But this is not exactly correct. In fact, the Senate since the 1970s has created a series of special rules—described by Molly Reynolds as “majoritarian exceptions”—that limit debate on a wide range of measures on the Senate floor. The details of these exemptions might sound arcane and technical, but in practice they have enabled the Senate to act even when it otherwise seemed paralyzed. Important examples include procedures used to pass the annual congressional budget resolution, enact budget reconciliation bills, review proposals to close military bases, attempt to prevent arms sales, ratify trade agreements, and reconsider regulations promulgated by the executive branch. Reynolds argues that these procedures represent a key instrument of majority party power in the Senate. They allow the majority—even if it does not have the sixty votes needed to block a filibuster—to produce policies that will improve its future electoral prospects, and thus increase the chances it remains the majority party. As a case study, Exceptions to the Rule examines the Senate's role in the budget reconciliation process, in which particular congressional committees are charged with developing procedurally protected proposals to alter certain federal programs in their jurisdictions. Created as a way of helping Congress work through tricky budget issues, the reconciliation process has become a powerful tool for the majority party to bypass the minority and adopt policy changes in hopes that it will benefit in the next election cycle.

The only comprehensive bibliography on Reconstruction, this book provides the definitive guide to literature published from 1877 to 1998. In over 2,900 entries, the work covers a broad range of topics including politics, agriculture, labor, religion, education, race relations, law, family, gender studies, and local history. It encompasses the years of the Civil War through the conclusion of the 1876 election and the end of the federal government's official role in reforming the postwar South and protecting the rights of Black citizens. In detailed annotations, the book covers a range of literature from scholarly and popular studies to published memoirs, letters and documents, as well as reference sources and teaching tools. The issues of Reconstruction—civil rights, states' rights and federal-state relations, racism, nationalism, government aid to individuals—continue to be relevant today, and the literature on Reconstruction is large. This book provides a systematic and comprehensive bibliographic guide to that literature. It is organized by topics and geographical regions and states, thereby emphasizing the local diversity in the South. In addition to a variety of literature, it covers the relevant Supreme Court cases through 1883, provides full citations to federal acts and cases cited, and includes the texts of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The book will be useful to scholars and students researching a wide range of topics in Southern history, constitutional history, and national politics in post Civil War United States.