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.
Image depicting page 57 from the book, Olaudah Equiano: The Interesting Narrative.
An American colonial newspaper, from the fall of 1765, reports that people in the British colonies (including those in Canada) were ignoring the stamp...
The United States drafted soldiers during World War I. This is an example of a "selective service" letter which young men received when they wer...
In 1704, Britain imposed “Penal Laws” which governed the conduct of Irish Catholics. Over the decades, those restrictive laws substantiall...
In 1865, a group of women petitioned the United States Congress to do something about female suffrage. This image depicts the original document which...
Justice John Marshall Harlan was the only Supreme Court justice - in his day - to deny that the "separate but equal" treatment of African-Americans wa...
Speaking for a seven-person majority, with Justice John Marshall Harlan dissenting, Justice Henry Billings Brown delivered the opinion of the court in...
Sermons, like this one from clergy like Abraham Keteltas, supported colonial revolutionary ideas by saying that God and Biblical authority backed thei...
Barack Obama issued his first Presidential Proclamation on the day he was sworn in - January 20, 2009. Announcing a National Day of Renewal and ...
On the 9th of August, 1974, President Nixon sent a letter to his Secretary of State (Henry Kissinger). In that letter, he resigned as America's ...
Despite existing laws which would have required a different outcome, President Van Buren was concerned that the rights of Spain be protected since the...
When the King learned about the Gunpowder Plot, he issued a Proclamation for the capture of the individuals he believed were involved. Issued on...
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