states rights/language meaning

[Bob Sheridan]

I see a legal right as being a legally enforceable claim, whether it's 
moral or not.  Some claims are enforceable, and some aren't.  The ones 
that aren't are sometimes called moral rights, or claims, i.e. claims 
that are morally but not necessarily legally supportable.  Many legal 
rights eventually go by the boards as morally insupportable.   Conlaw is 
replete with examples, slavery and Jim Crow being two of the most 
notorious examples.

rs
sfls



Volokh, Eugene wrote:
> 	It is certainly possible for words to change their meaning.  It's also possible to try to deliberately change the meaning of words, though it's very difficult to do, since it requires broad acceptance of the proposal among a vast body of speakers (vast even if the word is chiefly of interest to lawyers).  
>
> 	But my sense is that Hohfeld's scholarship, while much admired and perhaps influential in some ways, has not changed the meaning of "right," nor have most of Hohfeld's other redefinitions and neologisms have been adopted.  In particular, the word "right" seems to retain, as one of its meanings, the same meaning that I pointed out from the late 1700s (and before):  A legal or moral entitlement, whether of individuals, organizations, states, nations, or other collectives.
>
> 	Eugene
>
> Bob Sheridan writes:
>
>   
>> I guess Madison and Jefferson pre-date Yale's Prof. Hohfeld (1879-1918)
>> , who divided the world into neat parts:
>>
>> Jural Opposites:
>>
>> 1. Right/No-Right 2. Privilege/Duty 3. Power/Disability 4.
>> Immunity/Liability
>>
>> Jural Corelatives:
>>
>> 1. Right/Duty 2. Privilege/No-Right 3. Power/Liability 4.
>> Immunity/Disability
>>
>> ***
>>
>> The above from Wikipedia, at:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Newcomb_Hohfeld
>>
>> Fundamental Legal Conceptions is his neat booklet on this.
>>
>> Maybe the words have changed their meaning.  Is that possible in this
>> world of ours?
>>     
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