Full Description
Blackstone in America explores the creative process of transplantation - the way in which American legislators and judges refashioned the English common law inheritance to fit the republican political culture of the new nation. With current scholarship returning to focus on the transformation of Anglo-American law to 'American' law, Professor Kathryn Preyer's lifelong study of the constitutional and legal culture of the early American republic has acquired new relevance and a wider audience. The collection includes Professor Preyer's work on criminal law, the early national judiciary, and the history of the book. All nine of Professor Preyer's important and award-winning essays are easily accessible in this volume, with new introductions by three leading scholars of early American law.
Contents
1. Introduction Stanley N. Katz; Part I. Law and Politics in the Early Republic: 2. Introduction Maeva Marcus; 3. Federalist policy and the Judiciary Act of 1801; 4. The appointment of Chief Justice Marshall; 5. The midnight judges; 6. US v. Callender: judge and jury in a republican society; Part II. The Law of Crimes in Post-Revolutionary America: 7. Introduction Kent Newmyer; 8. Penal measures in the American colonies: an overview; 9. Crime, the criminal law and reform in post-revolutionary Virginia; 10. Jurisdiction to punish: authority, federalism and the common law of crimes in the early republic; Part III. The History of the Book and Trans-Atlantic Connections: 11. Introduction Mary Sarah Bilder; 12. Beccaria and the founding fathers; 13. Two enlightened criminal law reformers: Thomas Jefferson of Virginia and Peter Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany.
