About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

61 Buff. L. Rev. 997 (2013)
The Rise and Fall of the Unwritten Law: Sex, Patriarchy, and Vigilante Justice in the American Courts

handle is hein.journals/buflr61 and id is 1037 raw text is: BUFFALO LAW REVIEW VOLUME 61 DECEMBER 2013 NUMBER 5 The Rise and Fall of the Unwritten Law: Sex, Patriarchy, and Vigilante Justice in the American Courts LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMANt WILLIAM E. HAVEMANNtt INTRODUCTION In the late 1850s, Daniel Edgar Sickles, a congressman from New York, received an anonymous letter with shocking news.' Sickles was a married man. His attractive wife, Teresa Bagioli, was much younger than Sickles-he was 37; she was about half his age. Your wife, the letter said, is carrying on an affair with a man named Philip Barton Key.2 The letter disturbed Sickles greatly. Sickles confronted his wife and asked her whether the letter told the truth; tearfully, she admitted that it did.3 She confessed that she used to meet with Key in a house on Fifteenth Street, where she did what is usual for a wicked woman to do, on a bed on the second floor.' Sickles was a man of action. He took his guns and looked for Key on the streets of the capital.' When he found him, he shouted, Key, you T Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law, Stanford University. tt J.D., 2013, Stanford University School of Law. 1. See W.A. SWANBERG, SICKLES THE INCREDIBLE 4, 46 (1956). 2. Id. at 46. Key was the son of Francis Scott Key, who wrote The Star- Spangled Banner. Philip Barton Key was young, good-looking, and a widower. 3. See id. at 49. 4. Id. at 50. 5. See id. at 54. 997

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most