Publication Date

1989

Document Type

Article

Abstract

In 1934, the United States made a revolutionary shift in Indian policy. Laws were passed that ended most assimilation measures and began, instead, a preservation and promotion of tribalism. Why did this happen? What changes in American thought, politics and economy could precipitate such a reversal? Felix Cohen, a former special assistant to the Attorney General, and known as the "Blackstone of American Indian Law," noted: "Like the miner's canary, the Indian marks the shifts from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and fall in our democratic faith. "

This Article will attempt to delve into the shifts in the political atmosphere, and explore the fundamental roots of the legal pattern-the philosophy, religion, science and economy. These elements and others underlie politics and the law, and an expansive concept of jurisprudence can include them. Indeed, jurisprudence can-and perhaps should-embrace the study of the mirrored reflection between a society's laws, and the essence of the society itself. "Law reflects but in no sense determines the moral worth of a society. The values of a reasonably just society will reflect themselves in a reasonably just law."

Publication Title

University of Missouri Kansas City Law Review

Volume

57

Issue

3

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