14 Questions
What was the key principle that American legal thought aimed to protect from the redistributive passions of the majority?
The sanctity of private property
What was the role of lawyers in early American legal thought?
They were viewed as the embodiment of reason and universal truth
What was the role of American jurists in the new democracy?
They acted as trustees for the whole community
Why did American jurists fear the majority?
They believed the majority had redistributive passions
What was the key principle that needed protection from the redistributive passions of the majority?
The sanctity of private property
Which source did early leading jurists recognize as providing a more practical definition of law?
Positive law
Which technique of legal reasoning involved interpreting technical common-law rules with a flexible, progressive American spirit and concern for commercial utility?
Liberality of interpretation
What was the main source and definition of law according to early American legal thought?
Positive law
How did American jurists view natural law theory?
They believed it was too indeterminate to guide judicial decision making
What technique of legal reasoning involved interpreting technical common-law rules with a flexible, progressive American spirit and concern for commercial utility?
Liberality of interpretation
What did late 18th and early 19th-century legal speakers claim about lawyers?
They portrayed themselves as the embodiment of republican virtue
What was the dominant model of public-law thinking in the 19th century?
The Lockean model
What was necessary to justify protecting private rights from public power?
A fully rationalized structure of private law
What was necessary to conceive of the private as purely private in order to justify protecting private rights from public power?
A fully rationalized structure of private law
Study Notes
- After the Revolution, American jurists focused on reestablishing legal authority for stability.
- The Constitution served as the expression of popular sovereignty and a legal text to be interpreted by professionals.
- Late 18th and early 19th-century legal speakers made extravagant claims about the role of law and lawyers.
- Lawyers portrayed themselves as the embodiment of republican virtue and acted as trustees for the whole community.
- Lawyers played a vital political role in protecting principle and legal right from mass assault in the new democracy.
- Private property was considered the surest foundation for ordered political liberty and economic stability.
- American jurists feared the redistributive passions of the majority and believed that lawyers should guard sacred property rights.
- American jurists lived in an intellectual context that no longer took for granted a close epistemological link between God, human reason, and the laws of nature.
- Natural law theory was too indeterminate to guide judicial decision making in specific cases.
- The moral content of natural-law theory often led in contradictory directions.
Test your knowledge on the role of American jurists and lawyers in the early days of the United States with this quiz. Explore how they sought to establish legal authority and protect property rights, while also grappling with the changing intellectual context of the time. Discover how natural law theory influenced the decisions of the courts and the extravagant claims made by legal speakers. See if you can identify the key themes and ideas that shaped the legal landscape of the young nation.
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