Reason Over Precedents: Origins of American Legal Thought

by Craig E Klafter

Overview

This legal and intellectual history shows how the education of American lawyers between 1779 and 1829 manifested a unique and distinct process of legal thought into the United States. This new American legal thought, based upon ideas imported from the works of European natural law writers, had a significant impact on the creation of a distinctly American legal system and was, and continues to be, instrumental in shaping American society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313286759
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/30/1993
Series:	Contributions in Legal Studies , #73
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)
Lexile:	1660L (what's this?)

About the Author

CRAIG EVAN KLAFTER is Research Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Southampton, England. He received his education at the University of Chicago and Oxford University and has held lectureships at the Universities of Manchester and Southampton. He has contributed articles to the American Jourbanal of Legal History and the Jourbanal of the Early Republic and his essay, The Americanization of Blackstone's Commentaries, was co-winner of the 1992 Webb-Smith Essay Prize.

Table of Contents

American Institutional Legal Education and the Instillment of a Dynamic Conception of Law, 1779-1829
St. George Tucker and the Influence of Blackstone's Commentaries on American Legal Education
Analytical Law Treatises and the Advent of American Legal Methodology
The Redaction of a Modified Doctrine of Stare Decisis into American Legal Practice: 1782-1830
The Effect of a Uniquely American Legal Thought on the Americanization of Law
Appendixes: St. George Tucker's Reading List for Law Students at the College of William and Mary
Proprietary Law Schools Founded Prior to 1830 with Biographical Information About Instructors and Graduates
Statistical Data and Graphs Indicating the Impact of Proprietary Law Schools on the American Bar and Judiciary
List of American Analytical Law Treatises Published Between 1794 and 1826
Table of Cases
Bibliography
Index