Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1992
Abstract
The great prairie lawyer Abraham Lincoln once said of an opposing legal counsel's argument, "He caught on to something, but only by the hind leg."l Lincoln's observation applies with equal force to our current understanding of the legal culture of the Great Plains, and even that characterization is generous. Take, for example, the literature on the region's history of public and private law and legal institutions. It is pitifully small. Bits and pieces are scattered through specialized journals and state history periodicals, but there is nothing like a systematic body of scholarship. 2
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 12:2 (Spring 1992). Copyright © 1992 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.