Legal Science in the Early Republic - The Origins of American Legal Thought and Education

This work examines the intellectual motivations behind the concept of "legal science"-the first coherent American jurisprudential movement after Independence. Drawing mainly upon public, but also private, sources, this book considers the goals of the bar's professional leaders who were most adamant and deliberate in setting out their visions of legal science. It argues that these legal scientists viewed the realm of law as the means through which they could express their hopes and fears associated with the social and cultural promises and perils of the early republic. Law, perhaps more so than literature or even the natural sciences, provided the surest path to both national stability and international acclaim. While legal science yielded the methodological tools needed to achieve these lofty goals, its naturalistic foundations, more importantly, were at least partly responsible for the grand impulses in the first place. This book first considers the content of legal science and then explores its application by several of the most articulate legal scientists working and writing in the early republic.

List of contents

An Introduction to the History of Law in the Early Republic
Part I: Legal Science
Chapter 1. Expounding Legal Science: Early Republican Law Lectures
Chapter 2. The Philosophy of Legal Science
Part II: Legal Scientists
Chapter 3. Knickerbocker as Legal Scientist: Gulian C. Verplanck
Chapter 4. English Radical as Legal Scientist: Thomas Cooper
Chapter 5. Southern Scholar as Legal Scientist: Hugh S. Legaré
Chapter 6. New England Justice as Legal Scientist: Joseph Story
Conclusion

About the author

Steven J. Macias is assistant professor of law at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Product details

• Authors: Steven J Macias, Steven J. Macias, Macias Steven J.
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.05.2016
• EAN: 9781498519465
• ISBN: 978-1-4985-1946-5
• No. of pages: 206
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 236 mm x 20 mm
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; USA, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, LAW / Constitutional, HISTORY / United States / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / American Government / Executive Branch, POLITICAL SCIENCE / American Government / Legislative Branch, Political science & theory, United States of America, USA, History of the Americas, Political science and theory, Constitution: government & the state, Constitution: government and the state, Constitutional & administrative law, Constitutional and administrative law: general