If you are a May 2013 GW Law grad, you may be eligible for extended Westlaw Classic/WestlawNext access through November 2013.  Check out our summary for more information.

Bloomberg Law, Lexis and Westlaw all offer programs for summer access.   Check out our summary of how to access these services over the summer months.

Don’t forget — our programs help you navigate your summer research assignments.  Find out more with our Research4Summer guide.

If you’re not on campus, you can still  access many of our database subscriptions.  Our Guide to Using Online Resources gives you information about off-campus access and proxy servers .

Ask us for help.  For more information about our services and how to reach us, visit our guide to Services@Jacob Burns Law Library.

View a message from Laurel Bellows, President of the ABA, and find other resources for discussion and reflection.

President Eisenhower first proclaimed Law Day in 1958.  Every President since then has proclaimed May 1 as Law Day.  Visit the Law Library of Congress’ “Law Day:  A Research Guide” for more information about the history of Law Day U.S.A.

In addition to setting the course for the young nation, Washington’s  sentiments about the Presidency established a tradition that continues.  He declined a third term, which practice was unbroken until the re-election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1940.  He preferred referring to the President as “Mr. President,” and not “His Excellency.”  In his first inaugural speech, Washington stated:

To the preceeding observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honoured with a call into the Service of my Country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed. And being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself, any share in the personal emoluments, which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the Executive Department; and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the Station in which I am placed, may, during my continuance in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.

April 23, 1564, is recognized as the birth date of William Shakespeare.  Although not trained as a lawyer, Shakespeare’s plays featured lawyers, court rooms and legal proceedings.  Protection of his plays and his business interests would have required a sophisticated knowledge of the law for a layman.  On ascending the throne in 1603, James I granted a royal patent to Shakespeare’s acting company, which changed its name to the “King’s Men” in his honor.

You can read Shakespeare’s plays and search digital text at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s digital collection.

For more on Shakespeare and the law, see:

Shakespeare and the Law:  A Conversation among Disciplines and Professions

Kill All the Lawyers?  Shakespeare’s Legal Appeal, by Daniel J. Kornstein

Shakespeare for Lawyers:  A Practical Guide for Quoting the Bard, by Margaret Graham Tebo

The battle was the first of the Revolutionary War, a culmination of events stemming from increasing taxation of the colonies by the British Parliament after the French and Indian War.   In 1773, Parliament passed the Tea Act to aid the East India Company in disposing of a surplus of tea.  No new taxes were imposed although the duty on tea continued; however, tea could only be sold by British agents.  The Boston Tea Party in December of 1773 turned backed British ships laden with tea from the East India Company.  The tea would have flooded the market, driving down prices and harming local merchants.

In response, Parliament passed the Boston Port Act, the first of the “Intolerable Acts,” to punish Boston and the colonies for acts against the King.  The colonists continued to organize responses to Britain and tensions escalated.  The First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in the Fall of 1774 and drafted a “Declaration and Resolves.”  Patrick Henry delivered his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech on March 23, 1775.

Paul Revere and others made their famous ride on April 18 to warn the colonists that the Regulars were coming to squash any rebellion and seize ammunition.  The Regulars and the militia met at Lexington, where the militia were outnumbered.  The Regulars marched on to Concord the next day.  Surprised by a well equipped and trained militia, many of whom had served in the French and Indian War, the Regulars retreated to Boston.

To read more about the beginnings of the American Revolution, see:

The Political and Legal Structure of the Thirteen Colonies Prior to the American Revolution, ed. by Adam Wolkoff.

The Constitutional Origins of the American Revolution, by Jack P. Greene.

At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, there were approximately four million slaves throughout the country.  Slavery in the United States ended with the end of Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.  Neither the Emancipation Proclamation nor the Thirteenth Amendment provided compensation for freed slaves.

In 2005, Emancipation Day on April 16th was declared an annual public holiday in the District of Columbia.

Read more about Lincoln and emancipation:

Freedom National:  The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865, by James Oakes.

Lincoln and the Constitution, by Brian R. Dirck.

Jefferson was educated at the College of William & Mary and studied law with George Wyeth.  Jefferson remarked in 1769 that “[a] lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.”  Jefferson maintained a law practice until 1774 and represented Albemarle County in the House of Burgesses until 1775.  With passage of the Intolerable Acts by Britain in 1774 to punish the Massachusetts colony for the Boston Tea Party, Jefferson became an outspoken critic of British policies in the colonies, writing A Summary View of the Rights of British America.  He joined fellow dissidents and was the author of the Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson served as governor of Virginia after war was declared,  as minister to France after the Revolution, as Washington’s Secretary of State, as Adams’ Vice-President, and as our third President.  After the British burned the capitol in 1812, Jefferson sold his library of 6700 volumes in 1815 to the Library of Congress.

Jefferson died at Monticello on July 4, 1826.  His writings on government and the law continue their influence to this day.

For more about Jefferson and his views, see:

The American Crucible:  Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights, by Robin Blackburn

Founding Faith:  How Our Founding Fathers Forged a Radical New Approach to Religious Liberty, by Steven Waldman

The Act provided that any person or persons could petition the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, and the Attorney General that “he, she or they hath or have invented or discovered any useful art, manufacture, engine or improvement therein not known before or used and praying that a patent may be granted…”  The patent gave the holder, his, her or their heirs, administrators or assigns “the sole and exclusive liberty and right of making, constructing, using and vending to others to be used, the said invention or discovery” for a term not exceeding 14 years.

In 1793, the Act was repealed by “An Act to Promote Progress of  Useful Arts,” ch. 11, 1 Stat. 318 (1793).  Changes to the prior act included limiting petitions to “any person or persons, who are citizens of the United States.”

Bloomberg Law, Lexis and Westlaw all offer programs for summer access.   Check out our summary of how to access these services over the summer months.

If you’re not on campus, you can still  access many of our database subscriptions.  Our Guide to Using Online Resources gives you information about off-campus access and proxy servers .

Ask us for help.  For more information about our services and how to reach us, visit our guide to Services@Jacob Burns Law Library.