Jackson Unchained: Reclaiming a Fugitive Landscape

Slaves were allowed three day's holiday at Christmas time, and so it was over Christmas that John Andrew Jackson decided to escape. The first day I devoted to bidding a sad, though silent farewell to my people; for I did not even dare to tell my father or mother that I was going, lest for joy they should tell some one else. Early next morning, I left them playing their "fandango" play. I wept as I looked at them enjoying their innocent pay, and thought it was the last time I should ever see them, for I was determined never to return alive. To run by day or by night? To flee on a road or in the woods? To rely upon subterfuge or unadulterated boldness? These were life-or-death decisions for a fugitive slave. When John Andrew Jackson fled a Sumter District plantation in South Carolina, he made strategic choices for his survival. he had a pony and rode mostly on roads, talking his way out of confrontations. Jackson gambled on his plausibility and charm. Most of all, he clung to a faith in his ability to mislead others with his own imagination. He crafted his own terrain

Fugitive dust : nonpoint sources (1999)

Fugitive dust is a relatively new term for an old problem. Simply put, fugitive dust is a type of nonpoint source air pollution -- small airborne particles that do not originate from a specific point such as a gravel quarry or grain mill. Fugitive dust originates in small quantities over large areas. Significant sources include unpaved roads, agricultural cropland and construction sites. Most rural Missouri citizens, particularly those living near unpaved roads, are familiar with the nuisance of fugitive dust (Figure 1). Recent research indicates that there are significant health considerations involved as well.New 10/99/3M

Tragic Irony of American Federalism: National Sovereignty versus State Sovereignty in Slavery and in Freedom, The Federalism in the 21st Century: Historical Perspectives

A plurality on the Supreme Court seeks to establish a state-sovereignty based theory of federalism that imposes sharp limitations on Congress\u27s legislative powers. Using history as authority, they admonish a return to the constitutional first principles of the Founders. These first principles, in their view, attribute all governmental authority to the consent of the people of each individual state, not the consent of the undifferentiated people of the Nation as a whole. Because the people of each state are the source of all governmental power, they maintain, where the Constitution is silent about the exercise of a particular power-that is, where the Constitution does not speak either expressly or by necessary implication-the Federal Government lacks that power and the states enjoy it. Consequently, the States can exercise all powers that the Constitution does not withhold from them. \u27 These first principles define the national government, on the other hand, as \u27entirely a creature of the Constitution.” Its authority is therefore limited to those \u27few and defined \u27 powers the Constitution delegates to it. Moreover, even expressly delegated powers, such as the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, must be cabined. These essential first principles require the courts to limit even further Congress\u27s expressly delegated powers by interpreting them as having judicially enforceable outer limits. Constitutional federalism thus imposes on the Court the-duty of preserving entire areas of traditional state concern from national usurpation. This first principle of judicial review attributes to the courts the role of active overseer of legislative policy. According to this view, the Founders mandated this state sovereignty theory of federalism \u27to ensure protection of our fundamental liberties. Recent scholarship presents a much more complicated picture of the Founders\u27 first principles, as my colleague Martin Flaherty argues. Jack Rakove has shown that the essence of revolutionary constitutionalism was avowedly experimental in nature. He persuasively argues that the Founders did not [lock] into the Constitution at the moment of its adoption ... a set of definitive meanings.” It also appears that the Founders did not expect their opinions about the Constitution to control later interpretations. Larry Kramer shares this view of the Founders\u27 understanding of the Constitution and argues that the real founding occurred when the Founders put the ratified Constitution into practice. David Currie similarly maintains that [t]he First Congress was practically a second constitutional convention. He argues, moreover, that Congress and executive officials, no less than judges, interpreted the Constitution and participated in giving the Constitution meaning and definition in the decades following ratification. Unquestionably, the Constitution created a national government of limited powers. However, the Founders\u27 understanding of the scope of its powers was far less limited than the few and defined powers the current Court\u27s state sovereignty plurality asserts

Ecological equivalence: a realistic assumption for niche theory as a testable alternative to neutral theory

Hubbell's 2001 neutral theory unifies biodiversity and biogeography by modelling steady-state distributions of species richness and abundances across spatio-temporal scales. Accurate predictions have issued from its core premise that all species have identical vital rates. Yet no ecologist believes that species are identical in reality. Here I explain this paradox in terms of the ecological equivalence that species must achieve at their coexistence equilibrium, defined by zero net fitness for all regardless of intrinsic differences between them. I show that the distinction of realised from intrinsic vital rates is crucial to evaluating community resilience. An analysis of competitive interactions reveals how zero-sum patterns of abundance emerge for species with contrasting life-history traits as for identical species. I develop a stochastic model to simulate community assembly from a random drift of invasions sustaining the dynamics of recruitment following deaths and extinctions. Species are allocated identical intrinsic vital rates for neutral dynamics, or random intrinsic vital rates and competitive abilities for niche dynamics either on a continuous scale or between dominant-fugitive extremes. Resulting communities have steady-state distributions of the same type for more or less extremely differentiated species as for identical species. All produce negatively skewed log-normal distributions of species abundance, zero-sum relationships of total abundance to area, and Arrhenius relationships of species to area. Intrinsically identical species nevertheless support fewer total individuals, because their densities impact as strongly on each other as on themselves. Truly neutral communities have measurably lower abundance/area and higher species/abundance ratios. Neutral scenarios can be parameterized as null hypotheses for testing competitive release, which is a sure signal of niche dynamics. Ignoring the true strength of interactions between and within species risks a substantial misrepresentation of community resilience to habitat los

Water Markets in Georgia: An Overview of Ongoing Sales of Water

This paper addresses considerations of direct relevance for ongoing debate in the state as to whether or not water should be sold "like a commodity". The primary point made in the paper is that water is and has long been bought and sold as a commodity in the state. Thus, in the author's view the ongoing debate is simply out of touch with reality.This paper presents case studies showing that there are currently wholesale and retail water markets in Georgia. Moreover, such markets have benefitted many Georgians. In each case, the market in water was created in response to the need to support economic development and lower customer's costs. These markets are subject to regulatory oversight, serve the interest of rural communities, and work in concert with the object of planning and managing water resources. Working Paper # 2003-00

Underground railroads: citizen entitlements and unauthorized mobility in the antebellum period and today

In recent years, some scholars and prominent political figures have advocated the deepening of North American integration on roughly the European Union model, including the creation of new political institutions and the free movement of workers across borders. The construction of such a North American Union, if it included even a very thin trans-state citizenship regime, could represent the most significant expansion of individual entitlements in the region since citizenship was extended to former slaves in the United States. With such a possibility as its starting point, this article explores some striking parallels between the mass, legally prohibited movement across boundaries by fugitive slaves in the pre-Civil War period, and that by current unauthorized migrants to the United States. Both were, or are, met on their journeys by historically parallel groups of would-be helpers and hinderers. Their unauthorized movements in both periods serve as important signals of incomplete entitlements or institutional protections. Most crucially, moral arguments for extending fuller entitlements to both groups are shown here to be less distinct than may be prima facie evident, reinforcing the case for expanding and deepening the regional membership regime

The Long Legacy of White Citizen Police: A Recap of the 12th Annual Gondwe Lecture

Last week, the Gettysburg College Africana Studies and Economics Departments sponsored the 12th annual Derrick K. Gondwe Memorial Lectureon Social and Economic Justice. This year’s lecture featured Dr. Edward E. Baptist, a Durham, North Carolina native currently teaching in the History Department at Cornell University. His lecture, “White Predators: Hunting African Americans For Profit, From the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act to Lee’s 1863 Invasion of Pennsylvania,” painted the picture of a centuries-long instinct among white Americans to police black Americans. [excerpt

Laboratory Procedure for Measuring the Effectiveness of Dust Control Palliatives

Creation of fugitive dust on unpaved roads results in the loss of up to 25 mm (one inch) of surface aggregate annually (FHWA, 1998). On these roads, shearing forces created by vehicles dislodge the fine aggregate fraction (silt and clay) that binds the coarse aggregate. Turbulent airflow created by vehicles loft these fine particles in plumes of fugitive dust that impact health, safety, and quality of life. The loss of these particles results in raveling of the road surface, culminating in large annual losses of surface aggregate. Chemical dust control (palliatives) is an attractive option. However, there are currently no accepted field or laboratory performance testing procedures for chemical road dust palliatives. The lack of a method to predict palliative performance forces engineers and road managers into a trial-and-error methodology or reliance on personal judgment and supplier claims to determine what will work best on their unpaved road or runway surfaces. The overall objective of this research was to finalize the development of a laboratory test procedure for evaluating different dust control formulations and application rates required to effectively control the airborne suspension of dust particles in the size range (aerodynamic diameter) of 10 μm or less.Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortiu

ISER 2012 Working Paper No. 1

Large resource development projects take years to plan. During that planning time, the public frequently debates the potential benefits and risks of a project, but with incomplete information. In these debates, some people might assert that a project would have great benefits, while others might assert that it would certainly harm the environment. At the same time, the developer will be assessing different designs, before finally submitting one to the government permitting agencies for evaluation and public scrutiny. For large mines in Alaska, the government permitting process takes years, and often includes an ecological risk assessment. This assessment is a data-intensive, scientific evaluation of the project’s potential ecological risks, based on the specific details of the project. Recently, some organizations have tried to bring scientific rigor to the pre-design public discussions, especially for mining projects, through a pre-design risk ecological risk assessment. This is a scientific assessment of the environmental risks a project might pose, before the details of project design, risk-prevention, and risk-mitigation measures are known. It is important to know whether pre-design risk assessment is a viable method for drawing conclusions about risks of projects. If valid risk predictions can be made at that stage, then people or governments would not have to wait for either a design or for the detailed evaluation that is done during the permitting process. Such an approach could be used to short cut permitting. It could affect project financing; it could affect the schedule, priority, or even the resources that governments put toward evaluating a project. But perhaps most important: in an age where public perceptions are an important influence on a project’s viability and government permitting decisions, a realistic risk assessment can be used to focus public attention on the facts. But if the methodology is flawed and results in poor quality information and unsupportable conclusions, then a pre-design risk assessment could unjustifiably either inflame or calm the public, depending on what it predicts.Executive Summary / Section 1. Introduction / Section 2. Overview of Ecological Risk / Section 3. Ecological Risk Assessment Methodology / Section 4. Examples of Post-Design Ecological Risk Assessments / Section 5. Pre-Design Ecological Risk Assessment: Risks of Large Scale Mining in the Bristol Bay Watershed / Section 6. Conclusion / Bibliograph