Drawing on groundbreaking and overwhelmingly extensive research into local court records, The Common Law in Colonial America proposes a "new beginning" in the study of colonial legal history, as it charts the course of the common law in Early America, to reveal how the models of law that emerged differed drastically from that of the English common law. In this first volume, Nelson explores how the law of the Chesapeake colonies--Virginia and Maryland--differed from the New England colonies--Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, New Haven, Plymouth, and Rhode Island--and looks at the differences between the colonial legal systems within the two regions, from their initial settlement until approximately 1660.
As this volume reveals, these trends in governance ultimately resulted in a tension between top-down pressures from Britain for a more uniform system of laws and bottom-up pressures from colonists to develop their own common law norms and ...
In this first volume, Nelson explores how the law of the Chesapeake colonies--Virginia and Maryland--differed from the New England colonies--Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, New Haven, Plymouth, and Rhode Island--and looks at the differences ...
In a projected four-volume series, The Common Law in Colonial America, William E. Nelson will show how the legal systems of Britain's thirteen North American colonies, which were initially established in response to divergent political, ...
As this volume reveals, these trends in governance ultimately resulted in a tension between top-down pressures from Britain for a more uniform system of laws and bottom-up pressures from colonists to develop their own common law norms and ...
... in American History: Public Values and Private Conscience (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016); William G. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630–1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State, 1 (Cambridge, Mass.
After concluding that the mid-eighteenth-century colonial legal system usually functioned effectively, this text focuses on constitutional events leading to the American Revolution, showing how lawyers used ideology in the interests of ...
The extensive introduction addresses the intellectual challenges posed by comparative approaches to legal history. This is followed by twelve essays derived from papers delivered at the 24th British Legal History Conference.
Willcox, William B. Gloucestershire: A Study in Local Government, 1590-1640. New Haven, 1940. Articles and Essays Cockburn, J. S. "The Nature and Incidence of Crime in England, 1559- 1625: A Preliminary Survey." In J. S. Cockburn, ed.
This book considers the interplay of law, ideology, politics and economic change in shaping constitutional thought, and provides a historical perspective on the contemporary debate about property rights.
In this first comprehensive study of women's property rights in early America, Marylynn Salmon discusses the effect of formal rules of law on women's lives.