Prestatehood Legal Materials

"[A] guide to the history and development of law in the U.S. and the change from territory to statehood"--Back cover.

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.

"This is an updated edition of item 325010 (AALL Publication Series No. 61) (formerly titled Guide to State Legislative and Administrative Materials 2002 ed.) From the preface: This guide brings together the major print and electronic sources of administrative and legislative information for the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the commonwealths and territories. The change in its contents since the last edition reflected the transformation of the world of legal information. The most notable change was the plethora of no-cost information available at law-related websites. The content of this edition has also been affected by the development of Internet search engines; consequently, information more likely to be current at a website was omitted."--Publisher's website.

"The goal of each book in the Legal Research Series (LRS) is to provide law students with the essential elements of legal research in each jurisdiction. This is the case with the new book for Hawai'i Legal Research LRS books explain concisely both the sources of state law research and the process for conducting state legal research effectively. Unlike more bibliographic research texts, these books go beyond describing resources to examine how to use each resource in a comprehensive research strategy. The books also incorporate legal analysis as part of the research process. Each book begins with an overview of the research process, and then explains how to use the most effective sources to research cases, statutes, legislative history, constitutions, administrative law, court rules, and secondary sources. Federal law is introduced briefly in each chapter, and a separate book in the series covers federal law extensively"--