Gibbons v. Ogden, Law, and Society in the Early Republic

by Thomas H. Cox

2009 · Ohio University Press

Gibbons v. Ogden, Law, and Society in the Early Republic examines a landmark decision in American jurisprudence, the first Supreme Court case to deal with the thorny legal issue of interstate commerce. Decided in 1824, Gibbons v. Ogden arose out of litigation between owners of rival steamboat lines over passenger and freight routes between the neighboring states of New York and New Jersey. But what began as a local dispute over the right to ferry the paying public from the New Jersey shore to New York City soon found its way into John Marshall’s court and constitutional history. The case is consistently ranked as one of the twenty most significant Supreme Court decisions and is still taught in constitutional law courses, cited in state and federal cases, and quoted in articles on constitutional, business, and technological history. Gibbons v. Ogden initially attracted enormous public attention because it involved the development of a new and sensational form of technology. To early Americans, steamboats were floating symbols of progress—cheaper and quicker transportation that could bring goods to market and refinement to the backcountry. A product of the rough-and-tumble world of nascent capitalism and legal innovation, the case became a landmark decision that established the supremacy of federal regulation of interstate trade, curtailed states’ rights, and promoted a national market economy. The case has been invoked by prohibitionists, New Dealers, civil rights activists, and social conservatives alike in debates over federal regulation of issues ranging from labor standards to gun control. This lively study fills in the social and political context in which the case was decided—the colorful and fascinating personalities, the entrepreneurial spirit of the early republic, and the technological breakthroughs that brought modernity to the masses.

Wallace Stevens and the Pennsylvania Keystone

by Thomas F. Lombardi

1996 · Susquehanna University Press

"Wallace Stevens and the Pennsylvania Keystone represents the definitive work on origins as they appear in Stevens's poetry. Author Thomas Francis Lombardi, a poet himself, traces Stevens's originary influences - place, family, tradition, the feminine, ethnic heritage, and religious roots - against the cosmopolitan influences of Cambridge and New York and demonstrates the extent to which Stevens's formative and early adult years shaped his entire life and influenced the grand sweep of his poetry." "That influence spread itself across Stevens's entire canon, from the early verse through Harmonium, Ideas of Order, Parts of a World, Notes toward a Supreme Fiction, Transport to Summer, The Auroras of Autumn, The Rock, and finally Opus Posthumous. Though Lombardi acknowledges the importance of the global presence in Stevens's poetry, he argues that the hallmark of the poet's vision is the presence of his Pennsylvania provincialism and the increasing significance he attached to his roots as he grew older." "Stevens's life epitomized a personal and irresistible rite of passage toward origins, a universal odyssey that sensitive people undertake over the course of their lives - the ethnocentric pull toward the native experience. That attraction to his native soil would inform much of the content of his poetry. To this end, he wished to be one with his ancestors for the reason of experiencing a sense of identity with the provincial past, not in spite of, but because of it. Without an adequate understanding of this relationship, no in-depth comprehension of Stevens's poetry seems possible."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Red Conspirator

by Thomas L. Sakmyster

2011 · University of Illinois Press

The author traces Peters's activities from his arrival in the United States to the dawn of the Cold War and his deportation back to Hungary. Known as the "Hungarian man of mystery," Peters emigrated to the United States in 1924 after serving in the Austrian Army during World War I. In America, he oversaw a false passport operation that facilitated the movement of Soviet agents to the United States and American communists to the Soviet Union. Working under a number of aliases, he constructed a complex network of informants and spies that stole numerous State Department documents in the 1930s. After years of hiding underground he was arrested and deported in 1949. The author reveals Peters to be not just the influential leader of conspiratorial Communist activities but also an organizer in the open American Communist party. The author of a handbook on Communism, Peters also set up a program to infiltrate the armed forces in the United States.

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report: Final Report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States (Revised Corrected Copy)

by Phil Angelides, Bill Thomas

2011 · Government Printing Office

In the wake of the most significant financial crisis since the Great Depression, the President signed into law on May 20, 2009, the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009, creating the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The Commission was established to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." The 10 members of the bi-partisan Commission, prominent private citizens with significant experience in banking, market regulation, taxation, finance, economics, housing, and consumer protection, were appointed by Congress on July 15, 2009. The Chair, Phil Angelides, and Vice Chair, Bill Thomas, were selected jointly by the House and Senate Majority and Minority Leadership.The FCIC is charged with conducting a comprehensive examination of 22 specific and substantive areas of inquiry related to the financial crisis. Some of these areas include: fraud and abuse in the financial sector, including fraud and abuse towards consumers in the mortgage sector; Federal and State financial regulators, including the extent to which they enforced, or failed to enforce statutory, regulatory, or supervisory requirements; the global imbalance of savings, international capital flows, and fiscal imbalances of various governments; monetary policy and the availability and terms of credit; accounting practices, including, mark-to-market and fair value rules, and treatment of off-balance sheet vehicles; tax treatment of financial products and investments; credit rating agencies in the financial system, including, reliance on credit ratings by financial institutions and Federal financial regulators, the use of credit ratings in financial regulation, and the use of credit ratings in the securitization markets; lending practices and securitization, including the originate-to-distribute model for extending credit and transferring risk; and more The Commission is called upon to examine the causes of major financial institutions which failed, or were likely to have failed, had they not received exceptional government assistance.In its work, the Commission is authorized to hold hearings; issue subpoenas either for witness testimony or documents; and refer to the Attorney General or the appropriate state Attorney General any person who may have violated U.S. law in relation to the financial crisis.