Daniel Farbman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Daniel Farbman
Social Science Research Network, Nov 27, 2021
Cardozo law review, 2021
After the election of 2016, many who opposed President Trump and his policies argued that local g... more After the election of 2016, many who opposed President Trump and his policies argued that local governments and local power would be the best tools to resist those policies and strengthen democracy. Among the most prominent acts of local resistance in the last decade have been resolutions that declare a town or a city a “Sanctuary” and refuse to cooperate with federal authorities in the deportation of undocumented immigrants. This Article situates these resolutions in a long tradition of local opposition to state and federal laws that towns and cities deem unjust by examining local opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Drawing on original archival research, this Article exposes striking similarities between contemporary tactics of local resistance and the tactics of local governments in 1850–1851 that passed formal resolutions opposing the Fugitive Slave Law. This examination of how local governments responded to the Fugitive Slave Law poses two broad questions: what did local governments think they were doing when they passed these resolutions? And how much power did local governments really have to achieve those goals? The answers to these questions are complex and context specific. The local struggles that resulted in these resolutions were part of an ongoing political struggle against the seemingly intractable problem of slavery. The local resistance chronicled here is exceptional neither in its heroism nor its effectiveness. Rather it is striking in its familiar messiness and ambition. In some cases, towns seemed to have modest expressive goals that could be met by their resolutions. In other cases, the towns’ resolutions seem to suggest a much broader set of substantive goals that were beyond the power or capacity of the town to achieve. Examining these responses to the Fugitive Slave Law offers a new analytical perspective on local responses to the deportation crisis. Examining what local governments think they are doing when they pass sanctuary ordinances and comparing that with what they are empowered or willing to do helps us think more clearly about how and by what means local governments can resist national policies and engage in broad political struggles.
This is the story of a group of abolitionist lawyers who devoted themselves to working within a l... more This is the story of a group of abolitionist lawyers who devoted themselves to working within a legal system that they considered to be fundamentally unjust and illegitimate. These "resistance lawyers" used the limited and unfriendly procedural tools of the hated Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 to frustrate, oppose, and, if possible, dismantle the operation of that law. Abolitionist resistance lawyers were forthrightly committed both to ensuring that their clients remained free and to using the cases that arose under the Fugitive Slave Law to wage a proxy war against the institution of slavery. Their daily direct service practices were inextricably linked to their movement politics and aspirations for systemic reform. Using new archival research that upends the existing historical consensus, I show that this linked practice was dramatically more effective than previously thought, both in protecting individual clients and as a means of building political opposition to slavery in local and national politics. This history should serve as a provocation for contemporary resistance lawyering. Many lawyers today practice within a legal system that they oppose in the hope of frustrating or dismantling that system. I suggest that today's resistance lawyers can learn from the abolitionists' integration of politics and daily practice as they fight to increase the political power and salience of their own work.
Law, Culture and the Humanities
In the last months of 2014, many Americans were reminded of the sad truth that policing can be br... more In the last months of 2014, many Americans were reminded of the sad truth that policing can be brutal and that black bodies and black lives are often the targets of that brutality. In Staten Island and in Ferguson (and elsewhere), images of young black men killed by the police generated a thrum of anger. While there were people in the streets protesting the killing of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, these early protests were local, and the protestors were mostly committed activists or members of the impacted (largely black) community. The protests did not jump these limits to become national until the sympathetic bystanders saw that the officers in Missouri and New York were not indicted. Brutality was tragic, the failure to “do justice” was an outrage. This article places this observation in historical context by looking back at similar dynamics across the last two centuries. What emerges is a genealogy that links the swelling protests in 2014 to moments of broader outrage throughout the historical struggle for racial justice. Again and again, where allies stood on the sidelines silently condemning violence, it was the spectacle of the legal system – their legal system – acting unjustly that sparked action.
Critical Analysis of Law, Oct 13, 2014
This essay argues that the legal realists were romantics in the tradition of Ralph Waldo Emerson.... more This essay argues that the legal realists were romantics in the tradition of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It traces this intellectual genealogy through perspective, vocabulary, and rhetorical strategy. In doing this work, it concludes that Hanoch Dagan's proposal to reconstruct legal realism does not go far enough. He paints a picture of a therapeutic contemporary use of realist thought (the salve), but gives short shrift to the destructive energy at the core of the movement (the scalpel). Recasting the realists as romantics suggests that the lessons that we might take from them for contemporary legal theory are better framed as "rekindling" than "reconstruction." * Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School; Ph.D. Candidate, American Studies, Harvard University. I would like to thank Joseph Singer for his encouragement and guidance.
Law, Culture and the Humanities, 2015
Social Science Research Network, Nov 27, 2021
Cardozo law review, 2021
After the election of 2016, many who opposed President Trump and his policies argued that local g... more After the election of 2016, many who opposed President Trump and his policies argued that local governments and local power would be the best tools to resist those policies and strengthen democracy. Among the most prominent acts of local resistance in the last decade have been resolutions that declare a town or a city a “Sanctuary” and refuse to cooperate with federal authorities in the deportation of undocumented immigrants. This Article situates these resolutions in a long tradition of local opposition to state and federal laws that towns and cities deem unjust by examining local opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Drawing on original archival research, this Article exposes striking similarities between contemporary tactics of local resistance and the tactics of local governments in 1850–1851 that passed formal resolutions opposing the Fugitive Slave Law. This examination of how local governments responded to the Fugitive Slave Law poses two broad questions: what did local governments think they were doing when they passed these resolutions? And how much power did local governments really have to achieve those goals? The answers to these questions are complex and context specific. The local struggles that resulted in these resolutions were part of an ongoing political struggle against the seemingly intractable problem of slavery. The local resistance chronicled here is exceptional neither in its heroism nor its effectiveness. Rather it is striking in its familiar messiness and ambition. In some cases, towns seemed to have modest expressive goals that could be met by their resolutions. In other cases, the towns’ resolutions seem to suggest a much broader set of substantive goals that were beyond the power or capacity of the town to achieve. Examining these responses to the Fugitive Slave Law offers a new analytical perspective on local responses to the deportation crisis. Examining what local governments think they are doing when they pass sanctuary ordinances and comparing that with what they are empowered or willing to do helps us think more clearly about how and by what means local governments can resist national policies and engage in broad political struggles.
This is the story of a group of abolitionist lawyers who devoted themselves to working within a l... more This is the story of a group of abolitionist lawyers who devoted themselves to working within a legal system that they considered to be fundamentally unjust and illegitimate. These "resistance lawyers" used the limited and unfriendly procedural tools of the hated Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 to frustrate, oppose, and, if possible, dismantle the operation of that law. Abolitionist resistance lawyers were forthrightly committed both to ensuring that their clients remained free and to using the cases that arose under the Fugitive Slave Law to wage a proxy war against the institution of slavery. Their daily direct service practices were inextricably linked to their movement politics and aspirations for systemic reform. Using new archival research that upends the existing historical consensus, I show that this linked practice was dramatically more effective than previously thought, both in protecting individual clients and as a means of building political opposition to slavery in local and national politics. This history should serve as a provocation for contemporary resistance lawyering. Many lawyers today practice within a legal system that they oppose in the hope of frustrating or dismantling that system. I suggest that today's resistance lawyers can learn from the abolitionists' integration of politics and daily practice as they fight to increase the political power and salience of their own work.
Law, Culture and the Humanities
In the last months of 2014, many Americans were reminded of the sad truth that policing can be br... more In the last months of 2014, many Americans were reminded of the sad truth that policing can be brutal and that black bodies and black lives are often the targets of that brutality. In Staten Island and in Ferguson (and elsewhere), images of young black men killed by the police generated a thrum of anger. While there were people in the streets protesting the killing of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, these early protests were local, and the protestors were mostly committed activists or members of the impacted (largely black) community. The protests did not jump these limits to become national until the sympathetic bystanders saw that the officers in Missouri and New York were not indicted. Brutality was tragic, the failure to “do justice” was an outrage. This article places this observation in historical context by looking back at similar dynamics across the last two centuries. What emerges is a genealogy that links the swelling protests in 2014 to moments of broader outrage throughout the historical struggle for racial justice. Again and again, where allies stood on the sidelines silently condemning violence, it was the spectacle of the legal system – their legal system – acting unjustly that sparked action.
Critical Analysis of Law, Oct 13, 2014
This essay argues that the legal realists were romantics in the tradition of Ralph Waldo Emerson.... more This essay argues that the legal realists were romantics in the tradition of Ralph Waldo Emerson. It traces this intellectual genealogy through perspective, vocabulary, and rhetorical strategy. In doing this work, it concludes that Hanoch Dagan's proposal to reconstruct legal realism does not go far enough. He paints a picture of a therapeutic contemporary use of realist thought (the salve), but gives short shrift to the destructive energy at the core of the movement (the scalpel). Recasting the realists as romantics suggests that the lessons that we might take from them for contemporary legal theory are better framed as "rekindling" than "reconstruction." * Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School; Ph.D. Candidate, American Studies, Harvard University. I would like to thank Joseph Singer for his encouragement and guidance.
Law, Culture and the Humanities, 2015