Underdevelopment and the Development of Law: Corporations and Corporation Law in Nineteenth-Century Colombia

Robert C. Means.

Published October 1980, The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN: 9-780-8078-1423-9.

Sir Edward Coke and ‘The Grievances of the Commonwealth,’ 1621-1628

Stephen D. White.

Published 1979. Order online through The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN: 978-0-8078-9807-9.

A UNC Press Enduring Edition — UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Law and Politics: The House of Lords as a Judicial Body, 1800-1976

Robert Stevens.

Published 1978, The Harvard University Press.

The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860

Morton Horwitz.

Published 1977. Order online through The Harvard University Press. ISBN: 9-780-6749-0371-5.

In a remarkable book based on prodigious research, Morton J. Horwitz offers a sweeping overview of the emergence of a national (and modern) legal system from English and colonial antecedents. He treats the evolution of the common law as intellectual history and also demonstrates how the shifting views of private law became a dynamic element in the economic growth of the United States.

Horwitz’s subtle and sophisticated explanation of societal change begins with the common law, which was intended to provide justice for all. The great breakpoint came after 1790 when the law was slowly transformed to favor economic growth and development. The courts spurred economic competition instead of circumscribing it. This new instrumental law flourished as the legal profession and the mercantile elite forged a mutually beneficial alliance to gain wealth and power.

The evolving law of the early republic interacted with political philosophy, Horwitz shows. The doctrine of laissez-faire, long considered the cloak for competition, is here seen as a shield for the newly rich. By the 1840s the overarching reach of the doctrine prevented further distribution of wealth and protected entrenched classes by disallowing the courts very much power to intervene in economic life.

This searching interpretation, which connects law and the courts to the real world, will engage historians in a new debate. For to view the law as an engine of vast economic transformation is to challenge in a stunning way previous interpretations of the eras of revolution and reform.

Endorsements

“It is to be hoped that a wide audience will read it since the issues it raises are indispensable… Horwitz’s book is written with a passion.”
— The New York Review of Books

“He has read widely in many fields…[and] has gathered a rich harvest for any reader…a remarkable achievement.”
— The Yale Law Journal

“A thoughtful contribution to the continuing issue of whether and how much we are governed by our judges.”
— Library Journal

“One of the five most significant books ever published in the field of American legal history.”
— William E. Nelson, Yale University

American Lawyers in a Changing Society: 1776-1876

Maxwell H. Bloomfield.

Published 1976, The Harvard University Press.

Law and Politics in Jefferson’s Louisiana

George F. Dargo.

Published 1975, The Harvard University Press.

The Development of Massachusetts Law, 1760-1830

William E. Nelson.

Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France

John H. Langbein.

Published 1974. Order online through The Harvard University Press. ISBN: 9780674184251.

Executive Privilege: A Constitutional Myth

Raoul Berger.

Published 1974. Order online through The Harvard University Press. ISBN: 9-780-6742-7425-9.

The Autobiographical Notes of Charles Evans Hughes

David J. Danelski, Joseph S. Tulchin.

Published 1973. Order online through The Harvard University Press. ISBN: 978-0-6740-5325-0.

Charles Evans Hughes (1862–1948) was lawyer, governor of New York, Supreme Court Justice, presidential candidate in 1916, Secretary of State in the Harding and Coolidge administrations, a member of the World Court, and Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 until his retirement in 1941. To some, Hughes appeared larger than life. Robert H. Jackson once said of him, “[He] looks like God and talks like God.” But to those who knew him well, he was quite human, extraordinarily gifted, but human nonetheless. His Autobiographical Notes portray him as no biography could and provide comment on almost a century of American history as seen by one who played a part in shaping its course.

Hughes’s notes reveal two sides of his personality—a serious side when he was at work, and a genial, sometimes humorous, side when he was relaxing or with friends and family. When he writes of unofficial life especially his boyhood, college years, and early years at the bar—he is raconteur telling his story with a certain amount of humor; when he writes of his official life he tends to be matter-of-fact. The early chapters describe the formative influence which shaped his character: his loving but intellectually demanding parents and deeply religious training; his unusual early education, which took place mostly at home and gave full scope to his precocity. Hughes’s accounts of college life in the 1870s at Madison (now Colgate) and Brown University and of his career as a young lawyer in the New York City of the 1880s and 1890s are valuable portraits of an era.

Brought up to a high sense of duty, Hughes, from the start of his career, felt bound to take worthy legal cases and it was his reputation for integrity and thoroughness that led to his selection as counsel in the gas and insurance investigations of 1905–1906. This was the turn of events that precipitated him into the public eye and, subsequently, into politics. The culmination of his career came in 1937 when he led the Supreme Court through a constitutional crisis and confronted Franklin Roosevelt in the Court packing battle. In the intervening thirty years, Hughes was a major figure in American political and legal circles. His Notes record his impressions of presidents, statesmen, and justices. His reflections on the diplomacy of the 1920s and on the causes leading up to the Second World War are of immense historical importance.

The editors have supplied an introduction to the Notes, commenting on Hughes’s personality and public image, his political style and rise to fame. They have remained unobtrusive throughout, intervening only to clarify references and provide necessary details. For the rest, they let Hughes speak for himself in the crisp and clear style that reveals his unusual intelligence and the retentive and analytical mind that distinguished his conduct of affairs.

Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote of Hughes: “I have known or know about most of the leading men of my time both here and in England enough to justify me in forming a judgment. There isn’t the slightest doubt that C.E.H. is among the few really sizable figures of my lifetime. He is three-dimensional and has impact.” Here, in these Notes, is this great man drawn in life-size proportions.

Frederic William Maitland: A Life

C.H.S. Fifoot.

Published 1971. Order online through The Harvard University Press. ISBN: 978-0-6743-1825-0.

Renowned as a great scholar, teacher, and legal historian, Frederic William Maitland (1850–1906) advanced the cause of legal history, opposing the idea that legal history was law and not history, yet believing in the advantage of legal training.

He was Downing Professor of Law at Cambridge, helped to found the Selden Society, and himself edited Henry de Bracton’s Notebook and four Year Books of Edward II. With Sir Frederick Pollock he wrote the brilliant work that is still a standard, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. He edited Memoranda de Parliamento, and wrote Domesday Book and Beyond, Township and Borough, and Roman Canon Law as well as many papers on legal history and law. His lectures on Equity, on The Forms of Action at Common Law, and on Constitutional History of England were published after his death.

C. H. S. Fifoot has written this biography of Maitland with care and devotion in a style that is lucid and eloquent. He traces the origin and development of Maitland’s works, using them to reveal the man himself and his qualities of mind and spirit. Mr. Fifoot places his subject in the context not only of his age, but also of his family and friends. He has drawn on Maitland’s letters as well as unpublished letters of his friends, private papers, manuscripts, and recollections, much of which would otherwise have perished. The many quotations of Maitland he has incorporated are delightful and revealing.