The Transformation of American Law, 17801860

Auteur

Morton J. Horwitz is a graduate of City College of New York and received a doctorate in Government and a law degree from Harvard University. Author of numerous articles in law and history, Mr. Horwitz is Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, where he teaches legal history.

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Awarded the Bancroft Prize in American History in 1978, Morton J. Horwitz's The Transformation of American Law, 1780-1860 is considered one of the most significant works ever published in American legal history. Since its publication in 1977, it has become the standard source on early nineteenth-century American law. In this monumental book, Morton J. Horwitz offers a sweeping overview of the emergence of our national (and modern) legal system from English and colonial antecedents. He begins with the common law, which emerged during the eighteenth century as the standard doctrine with which to solve disputes in an egalitarian manner. He shows that the turning point in the use of common law came after 1790, when the law was slowly transformed to favor economic growth and development, and the courts began to spur economic competition rather than circumscribe it. This new instrumental law would flourish during the nineteenth century as the legal profession and the mercantile elite forged a mutually beneficial alliance to gain wealth and power. Horwitz also demonstrates how the emergence of contract law corresponded to the development of economic and legal institutions of exchange. And he discusses how the rise of the market economy influenced legal practices, how contracts became ways to negate preexisting common law duties, and how (to the benefit of entrepreneurs and commercial groups) the courts were able to overthrow earlier anticommercial legal rules. Previous historical studies have viewed law and policy as an accurate reflection of the needs of an undifferentiated society. In The Transformation of American Law, Horwitz successfully challenges this misconception and shows how, in theeighty years after the American Revolution, a major change in law took place in which aspects of social struggle turned to legal channels for resolution. Looking into the distribution of wealth and power during this time, Horwitz finds indeed that the change in legal ideol

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

Contenu
Introduction 1. The Emergence of an Instrumental Conception of Law 2. The Transformation in the Conception of Property 3. Subsidization of Economic Growth through the Legal System 4. Competition and Economic Development 5. The Relation between the Bar and Commercial Interests 6. The Triumph of Contract The Equitable Conception of Contract in the Eighteenth Century The Rise of a Market Economy and the Development of the Will Theory of Contract Custom and Contract Tort and Contract 7. The Development of Commercial Law The Rise of Negotiability The Law of Insurance: The Development of Actuarial Conceptions of Risk Usury Swift v. Tyson: The Rise of a General Commercial Law 8. The Rise of Legal Formalism Notes Index