On March 6

On this day in ...
... 1836 (175 years ago today), Mexican troops stormed the Alamo, an old Spanish mission/fortress in San Antonio, in which supporters of an independent Texas had been under prolonged siege. Heavy casualties resulted; all the Texans died. (photo credit) The loss of the fort became a rallying cry in subsequent battles, and Texas became an independent republic a couple months later. It would become a constituent state of the United States in 1845.

(Prior March 6 posts are here, here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'Just punishment can occur without resorting to the death penalty.'

-- Statement signed by the Archbishop of Cincinnati, the Bishop of Columbus, and 8 other Roman Catholic Church leaders in Ohio, reported to have "joined a chorus" of calls for repeal of the state's 30-year-old capital punishment statute. (credit for 2005 AP photo of Ohio's execution chamber) Others sounding this call include "Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul E. Pfeifer, a Republican who helped write the state's original death-penalty law" (his anti-death-penalty op-ed is here), as well as "a former state prisons director who witnessed 33 executions." Data revealed Ohio to be 2d only to Texas in the number of recent executions; another is set for February 17. Ohio's death row houses 156 men and 1 woman.

On January 1

On this day in ...
... 1925, Texas' governor appointed a special Texas Supreme Court whose members all were women. A Dallas newspaper wrote:

It was a healthy New Year gift of recognition to the woman barrister of today. This is the first instance a woman has been appointed to sit on the supreme bench; it is the first time a higher court is to be composed entirely of women and it is the initial case where a majority of the judges will be women.

The case was the appeal of a land dispute, brought by the Woodmen of the World, an influential fraternal order to which nearly all male lawyers and officials in Texas belonged. By dint of a WOW insurance program, nearly all of them had a financial interest in the case, and so were disqualified from participation in the appeal -- opening the way for the all-woman bench. The 3 women Justices who sat on the case are depicted above; from left, Hattie Leah Henenberg, a legal aid lawyer who later would serve as a state and federal prosecutor; Hortense Sparks Ward, a women's suffragist and property rights activist who in 1915 had become the 1st woman ever admitted to the Texas bar; and Ruth Virginia Brazzil, a sometime real estate broker and businesswoman said to have opposed women's suffrage. (photo credit) After issuing its decision in the sole case within its jurisdiction, the special high court disbanded at the end of May 1925.

(Prior January 1 posts are here, here, and here.)

New and Noteworthy: Seventh Star of the Confederacy

Seventh Star of the Confederacy: Texas during the Civil War, Kenneth W. Howell, editor,University of North Texas Press, 348pp, 2009, $34.95.

Reviewed by Christopher B. Bean (East Central University) Published on H-CivWar (September, 2010) This review is entitled The Lone Star and the Stars and Bars

Almost 150 years since the guns fell silent, the American Civil War continues to fascinate. Countless works on the major battles and participants fill the shelves of libraries, offices, and studies, and the desire to examine the seminal moment in American history never wanes. However, much of this attention examines the Eastern theater or the generalship of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. Kenneth W.Howell's work, The Seventh Star of the Confederacy, attempts to correct this focus.

Howell's book focuses on Texas during the Civil War and incorporates nearly two decades of research since the publication of Ralph Wooster's Lone Star Blue and Gray: Essays on Texas in the Civil War(1995). In this collection of seventeen essays, Howell highlights aspects of the Lone Star State while challenging the notion that Texas was nothing more than an insignificant backwater with little relevance to the study of the Civil War. The seventeen essays are broken up into four parts. Part 1 involves a historical overview of Texas and the Civil War, including a very informative and useful historiographical essay by Alwyn Barr and a brief overview of the Lone Star State during the Civil War by Archie P. McDonald. Part 2 contains essays chronicling battles taking place in Texas while part 3 discusses military units from the state. Included in the fourth part is a hodgepodge of subjects, such as the Confederate governors, slaves during the war, and Union dissent.

Quite possibly the strongest part of the book is Barr's historiographical essay. For years, students of Texas history and the Civil War will reference this essay, which highlights the major studies on Texas during the Civil War published in the last two decades. Also important are essays by Linda S. Hudson and John Gorman, which examine the Knights of the Golden Circle in Texas before the war and the frontier defense units during the conflict. These works go beyond the typical discussions of enlistment and fighting, too often seen in unit histories, and examine the composition of the units through extensive use of the census roles. Such tools allow historians to personalize the war by adding a human aspect that in the past was wanting.

Despite the many strengths of the work, there are a few problems with it as well. Several essays in part 3, which comprises studies focusing on battles within Texas, could have been condensed into one, all-encompassing essay. For instance, Donald Willett's piece on the Union occupation of Galveston, the one by Edward T. Cotham Jr. on the failure of the Union to capture Texas, and Charles D. Spurlin's examination of the Yankees' arrival on the coastal bend, all could have made up one essay. Doing so not only would have captured the various attempts by the North to invade Texas, but also would have provided space for subjects that require more examination, such as Texas's economy during the war or the dissolution of Confederate forces in Texas at the end of the conflict. Covering the latter issue would have strengthened the work, for, at times, some of the essays seem like nothing more than a rehash of Wooster's book.

The fact that some essays are quite similar to those printed in Wooster's is not a terrible deficiency, though, since the availability of these works in one source is quite beneficial, for both students and professors. Nor is it a problem that an essay or two repeats what we already know, such as Ronald E. Goodwin's and
Bruce A. Clasrud's pieces on slaves in Texas during the Civil War. The one essay that seems out of place is James M. Smallwood's about the causes of the Civil War. Not only does it fail to incorporate Texas into the events of the 1850s, but the author also turns the essay into a polemic, something unnecessary in a scholarly work.

Although it does not replace Wooster's work, Howell's edited volume serves as a complement. What Howell has produced is a collection that covers a broad range of subjects. But the importance of these essays goes beyond simply being useful and informative. The Seventh Star of the Confederacy achieves its goal of highlighting the people and events of Texas during the Civil War. For that reason alone, this work should be a welcomed addition to the shelf of any student of the Civil War.

Text Source: H-Net

Judge takes on Texas death penalty

Details here. And here's the reasoning by Judge Kevin Fine, whose colleague in Harris County set the execution date for José Ernesto Medellín a while back, as we then posted:

'Based on the moratorium (on the death penalty) in Illinois, the Innocence Project and more than 200 people being exonerated nationwide, it can only be concluded that innocent people have been executed. It's safe to assume we execute innocent people.'

IntLawGrrls' other posts on capital punishment -- in addition to that titled Death in the Heart of Texas -- are here, here, here, here, here, and here.

On September 1

On this day in ...
... 1933 (75 years ago today), Dorothy Ann Willis was born in Lakeview, Texas. "[S]he grew up in Waco, where she made her mark early on as an outstanding student who excelled at debate and participated in Girls State," a leadership program sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary. A teacher, she married David Richards and brought up 4 children in Austin. In her free time the woman whose married name was Ann Richards volunteered on political campaigns, among them that of Sarah Weddington, who'd argued Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1990 Richards herself was elected Governor of Texas. The state's website says she "brought a vitality and outrageousness to the governship that had not been seen in decades," a judgment reinforced by the photo above right. Richards, whom the Washington Post obituary described as a "feminist Democrat" with a "Texas twang, halo of white hair and quick-on-the-draw quips," lost her 1994 re-election bid to George W. Bush. She died of cancer in 2006. (photo credit)
... 1929, Germany's Weimar government accepted the Young Plan, which renegotiated the harsh reparations payments that had been set forth in the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles. For his negotiation efforts the chair of the committee that forged the eponymous plan, U.S. financier Owen D. Young, would be named Time's Man of the Year (left). The Young Plan was implemented in 1930; however, payments faltered amid a global economic depression and the rise of Nazism in Germany.

On June 13

On this day in ...
... 1875, Miriam Amanda Wallace was born in Bell County, Texas. After attending Salado College and Baylor Female College, in 1899 she married James E. Ferguson, who served as Governor of Texas from 1915-1917. "Pa" having been forbidden to run again following his impeachment and conviction, in 1925 Miriam A. Ferguson was elected Governor of Texas in his stead. Her slogan? "Two governors for the price of one." She was the 1st woman elected governor, but the 2d, after Wyoming's Nellie Tayloe Ross, to be sworn in. A Democrat, "Ma" Ferguson (left) was a fiscal conservative opposed both to the Ku Klux Klan and Prohibition, but suspected of inviting graft. She lost re-election in 1926, then served again as governor for 2 years in the 1930s. She died in 1961.
... 1888 (120 years ago today), an act establishing the U.S. Department of Labor was signed into law by President Grover Cleveland.

NAFTA: Take Two

I had originally planned a discussion of the treatment of oil and water under the WTO, but after watching news reports today I cannot resist one more post on NAFTA. The story of the day is that one of Sen. Barack Obama’s top advisors, Professor Austan D. Goolsbee (below right) of the University of Chicago (photo credit), met with Canadian diplomats to reassure them Obama’s stand on NAFTA was “more reflective of political maneuvering than policy.” Goolsbee is reputed to have said Obama’s language “should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans.” Hmmm. So, let me get this straight . . . we are not walking away from NAFTA after all? Did anyone actually believe we would? I have never considered myself a NAFTA cheerleader. As those who read my previous posts know, I have both a philosophical and economic preference for multilateral agreements. (In fact, we are currently in the midst of a multilateral round of negotiations right now—the Doha Development Round—although you wouldn’t know it given the singular lack of media coverage of the Round). But I find it hard to remain silent in the face of the careless and hyperbolic discussion on trade I see occurring in public discourse. Can we all just agree the debate on NAFTA was fought and won back in 1994? We entered the agreement fully aware it would have some impact on our economy, but the impact would be relatively minor. And that is exactly what happened. When I say “minor,” I do not mean to dismiss the thousands of families who have lost their livelihoods in the wake of NAFTA. But NAFTA does not exist in a vacuum, we are signatories to a host of multilateral and regional agreements. Will we bow out of those as well? Job losses occur for many reasons—including technological innovation. Producers of horse carriages experienced large-scale displacement when the automobile became widely-available, but no one would suggest a return to the horse-and-carriage regime. The job losses from NAFTA can and should be addressed. We should be exploring the candidates’ proposals on job creation, their support of innovation, and tax incentives—all of these contribute to the creation of new possibilities for displaced workers.
Moreover, NAFTA is not just about job losses, we have also gained a great deal. Mexico and Canada are now the United States’ top trading partners, and consumers, workers, entrepreneurs, the Tax Man, we all benefit from that relationship. Are we prepared to give up those gains? What the NAFTA debate has shown in stark relief is that the benefits and harms of the agreement are not evenly distributed. Border states like Texas benefit from NAFTA—in terms of exports, jobs and investment to list just a few examples. Other states, like Ohio, suffer the harm of job losses. We need a real plan to balance the benefits/detriments equation. It is a discussion that cannot be achieved through snippets, accusations and sound bites. We have done an abysmal job of creating a place for the candidates to relate their true position—in all of its nuance, caveats and uncertainties. Perhaps a Mexican government official put it best when he said “we are convinced that what North America needs is more integration and not less integration. North America needs to look to the future and not return to the past.”

On February 3, ...

... 2008, we wish a very Happy Birthday to Tiernan and Léa, IntLawChildren who're turning 10 and 13, respectively, this week! Tiernan's the creator of the peace poster featured in October and reprinted at left.
... 1998 (10 years ago today), at 6:45 p.m. Central time, Texas executed Karla Faye Tucker, the 1st woman put to death that state since the Civil War. Tucker, on death row for 15 years, had become a born-again Christian. Although evangelicals had taken up her cause,

her final appeals to the Supreme Court and to Gov. George W. Bush for a reprieve were denied today. She became the second woman executed in the United States since the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume, in 1976.

... 1916, a protest was led by French-speaking teachers whose pay had been frozen on account of their resistance to state-imposed language restrictions. The teachers' stirke closed 17 bilingual schools in Ontario, Canada.

Other Voices---The Memory of the Gainesville, Texas Hangings: Lost, Stolen, Strayed and Finally Remembered By Some But Not the SCV

The Great Hanging, Long Ignored, Now Immorialized, Bud Kennedy, Star-Telegram (Tarrant County and North Texas),Saturday, Oct 27, 2007.

They called it the Great Hanging.
And for 145 years, Gainesville has tried to forget the largest mass lynching in American history. Now, it is remembering those 14 deaths plus 28 other men executed amid the political tension of the Civil War.

A city park filled with 42 tiny crosses was dedicated Friday to remember the 1862 deaths. Most of the men were convicted and hanged as Union sympathizers. Fourteen were hunted down and lynched outright by a renegade mob angered by anti-war dissent.
"For the first time in nearly 150 years, we are remembering the sacrifice here," said Leon Russell, 78, of Keller, a Cooke County native opposing the "cult of secrecy" around the hangings.

The lynchings -- and, depending on your political point of view, the trials -- are considered among the most shameful abuses in the Confederate States. Yet they are rarely taught in local history lessons. "People have kept this a well-guarded secret," said Russell, a retired Dallas insurance executive, talking by phone from Gainesville's Morton Museum before the park dedication. "Some people here wanted it to stay secret." The Great Hanging has been no secret to historians. University of North Texas history professor Richard McCaslin wrote about it in a 1994 book, Tainted Breeze. McCaslin emphasized Friday that the memorial does not take either the Confederate or Union side, or blame anyone. Some local families are descendants of the 40 widows and 120 children left fatherless. One leader who lobbied for the memorial was the granddaughter of a juror.

The 14 lynchings alone make it the largest vigilante-style mass killing in American history. "The only message is that this event is worth remembering," McCaslin said. Then he said something that might apply today. "In wartime, when there is so much emphasis on national unity, the very idea of free speech can be seen as threatening and divisive," he said. "The reaction can have an impact on a nation and a region."

Cooke County and most of the counties north of Dallas and Fort Worth had voted against Texas joining the Confederacy. By 1862, Confederate leaders were criticized because wealthy landowners weren't getting drafted, and dissenters were organizing a Peace Party political faction. "Southerners did not agree on the war," McCaslin said. "In particular, North Texans did not agree on the war. ... All we want is for Gainesville to have a window on the past, to see that it's OK to discuss these issues even though we don't always agree." The Gainesville City Council approved the memorial Tuesday. The vote was unanimous.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a history and heritage organization, has a chapter in nearby Lindsay. The chapter is named in part for Confederate Col. James G. Bourland, who led the arrests of those convicted and hanged. Kenneth Blair, the local SCV commander, said his group did not know about the memorial proposal. The Sons meet monthly and discuss history, but nobody has ever discussed the hangings, he said. "The facts seem unclear," he said. "Were these lawful trials, or not? Were these people spies, or was this renegade Southerners going crazy? I don't know, and I've got dear friends whose ancestors were hanged. I don't necessarily condone what happened."

The idea of a memorial has been around since 1916, when a Massachusetts congressman proposed spending $100,000 for a federal monument. A Texas lawmaker opposed it, saying that some of the men were executed by a military tribunal. Russell, the man behind the memorial, said he never learned about the lynchings and hangings growing up in Woodbine, east of Gainesville. He didn't even know about the incident until a few years ago, when an acquaintance from New York asked.

Russell went home to Gainesville and started asking educators and leaders. "I know it's not something for Gainesville to be proud of," he said. "But it's not something they should hide." It's not hidden anymore.

CWL Reflects: It's difficult to dwell on violence that reflects badly on your region's heritage. In much of Pittsburgh's (the center of my Southwestern Pennsylvania) industrial heritage there is little talk of labor heritage and only a fraction of that is the public recognition of anti-labor violence. For a leader of a SCV chapter to say in so many words, "Well, I am generally confused about what happened" is an honest dodge, but regretable, especially with a fine scholarly work written in an accessible style, like McCaslin's, is available on the topic.

Medellín & death in the heart of Fox' Texas

Am happy for opportunities to talk IntLaw with the media; seems part of a prof's job to try to help others make some sense of the intricate ways that law aims for fair and nonforcible settlement of disputes. Most Fox News Radio interviews I did this morning went just fine, but one reminded just how difficult the task of IntLaw explanation can be.
Listening patiently to the 7 a.m. drivetime prattle in San Antonio, Texas. Ready to talk about Medellín v. Texas, set for oral argument today in D.C.
As we've posted, the Supreme Court's considering whether President George W. Bush overstepped when he ordered state courts to enforce the International Court of Justice judgment in Mexico v. United States (Avena) (2004) by means of "review and reconsider[ation]" of the cases of Medellín and 50 other Mexican nationals condemned to death without being told of their right under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to call their consulate for help with their defense. Phrased another way, the question's whether Texas' highest criminal court was in the right when, citing judicial independence, it told Bush that he was wrong. A fascinating mix of questions of state, national, and international law.
The intro line to the Texas interview? "Sovereignty at stake."
1st words out of the radio host's mouth? The gory details of the crime for which Medellín's been convicted, gang rape and murder of 2 young women when he was 18. Establishing spin for the rest of the interview, the account reminded of the frame in which even the most ordinary criminal cases often are presented to the public.
Gist of the questions? Where do these international courts come off thinking they can tell us (read U.S.) what to do? The answer, that the ICJ's a court on which the United States insisted in 1945, and that what's at stake is whether the United States can keep its promises, did not seem entirely welcomed.
Final question added a note of immigration to the already heady law & order/sovereignty stew. It went something like this: Bush's made a habit throughout his presidency of refusing to go along with international law. Isn't his backing off here about nothing but politics with Mexico?Interview over, here's a question: What can IntLaw types do to stake a claim to America's heartland?

Death in the heart of Texas redux

We've posted before about the fondness for the death penalty in Texas, which this week executed its 400th inmate since 1982, when it reinstated capital punishment following a brief, U.S. Supreme Court-imposed moratorium. (That's 21 so far this year, with another 3 persons set for execution this week.) Today our Opinio Juris colleague, Roger Alford, reports on a colloquy on the subject between Texas and the European Union. The EU called for a halt to executions in the state. Here's the response of Texas Gov. Rick Perry:

230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.

Roger remarks:

This is cute, but regrettable. Governor Perry doesn't seem to take the EU's statement seriously. Of course, the EU is not suggesting that it wishes to 'govern Texas.' It is simply engaging in public diplomacy about an issue of global concern. Recognizing Texas's sovereignty over this issue, it is issuing a diplomatic request for Texas to consider a moratorium.
Rather than mock the European Union's respectful diplomatic overture, I wish Governor Perry would take it seriously and address the EU's concerns on the merits.

Agree, Roger, with one caveat: Isn't it possible that Texas' response was meant neither to be cute nor mocking, but rather dead serious?