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Taming Alabama

Taming Alabama

Lawyers and Reformers, 1804-1929

by Paul M. Pruitt Jr.

Introduction by G. Ward Hubbs

200 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 0.50 in

Paperback
9780817356019
Published: July 2010

$26.95

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9780817383282
Published: July 2010

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Description
Contents
Authors

Taming Alabama focuses on persons and groups who sought to bring about reforms in the political, legal, and social worlds of Alabama. Most of the subjects of these essays accepted the fundamental values of nineteenth and early twentieth century white southern society; and all believed, or came to believe, in the transforming power of law. As a starting point in creating the groundwork of genuine civility and progress in the state, these reformers insisted on equal treatment and due process in elections, allocation of resources, and legal proceedings.

To an educator like Julia Tutwiler or a clergyman like James F. Smith, due process was a question of simple fairness or Christian principle. To lawyers like Benjamin F. Porter, Thomas Goode Jones, or Henry D. Clayton, devotion to due process was part of the true religion of the common law. To a former Populist radical like Joseph C. Manning, due process and a free ballot were requisites for the transformation of society.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction by G. Ward Hubbs

1. Harry Toulmin: A Frontier Justinian

2. Benjamin F. Porter: Whig and Law Reformer

3. Julia Tutwiler: Preparation for a Lifetime of Reform

4. James F. Smith: Ordination and Order

5. Thomas Goode Jones: The Personal Code of a Public Man

6. Joseph C. Manning: Defender of the Voteless

7. Henry D. Clayton: Plantation Progressive on the Federal Bench

Afterword

Notes

Index

Paul M. Pruitt Jr. is Special Collections Librarian at the Bounds Law Library, University of Alabama School of Law. He is coeditor of Private Life of a New South Lawyer: Stephens Croom’s 1875-1876 Journal, and other volumes in the Occasional Publications of the Bounds Law Library series. Pruitt’s articles have appeared in the Alabama Review, Alabama Law Review, Southern Studies, Alabama Heritage, Journal of Southern Legal History, and other journals.

G. Ward Hubbs is associate professor, reference librarian, and archivist with Birmingham-Southern College, editor of Rowdy Tales from Early Alabama: The Humor of John Gorman Barr, and author of Guarding Greensboro: A Confederate Company in the Making of a Southern Community.

Taming Alabama

Lawyers and Reformers, 1804-1929

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