Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Mann Act

(Encyclopedia)Mann Act: see Mann, James Robert. ...

Preemption Act

(Encyclopedia)Preemption Act, statute passed (1841) by the U.S. Congress in response to the demands of the Western states that squatters be allowed to preempt lands. Pioneers often settled on public lands before th...

Volstead Act

(Encyclopedia)Volstead Act: see under Volstead, Andrew Joseph. ...

Smith Act

(Encyclopedia)Smith Act, 1940, passed by the U.S. Congress as the Alien Registration Act of 1940. The act, which made it an offense to advocate or belong to a group that advocated the violent overthrow of the gover...

Test Act

(Encyclopedia)Test Act, 1673, English statute that excluded from public office (both military and civil) all those who refused to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, who refused to receive the communion acc...

Sedition Act

(Encyclopedia)Sedition Act: see Alien and Sedition Acts. ...

Stamp Act

(Encyclopedia)Stamp Act, 1765, revenue law passed by the British Parliament during the ministry of George Grenville. The first direct tax to be levied on the American colonies, it required that all newspapers, pamp...

contempt

(Encyclopedia)contempt, in law, interference with the functioning of a legislature or court. In its narrow and more usual sense, contempt refers to the despising of the authority, justice, or dignity of a court. A ...

Chapman, John Jay

(Encyclopedia)Chapman, John Jay, 1862–1933, American essayist and poet, b. New York City, grad. Harvard, 1885. He was admitted to the bar in 1888, but after 10 years abandoned law for literature. Active in the an...

Burger, Warren Earl

(Encyclopedia)Burger, Warren Earl, 1907–95, American jurist, 15th chief justice of the United States (1969–86), b. St. Paul, Minn. After receiving his law degree in 1931 from St. Paul College of Law (now Mitche...