Thomas Jefferson, Legal History, and the Art of Recollection

Two opening chapters set the contexts "out of which Jefferson's concerns for collecting and reading legal history emerged" (p. 39). Kames's sense "that one could not study the law without studying it historically, without comparing it to other systems of jurisprudence, and w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of Southern History Vol. 84; no. 1; pp. 142 - 144
Main Author Spencer, Mark G
Format Book Review Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Houston Southern Historical Association 01.02.2018
Subjects
Bacon, Francis (1561-1626)
Historiography
Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)
Hume, David (1711-1776)
Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826)
Law
Learning
Legal history
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889-1951)
England
United Kingdom > UK
United States > US
North America
Virginia
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Summary:Two opening chapters set the contexts "out of which Jefferson's concerns for collecting and reading legal history emerged" (p. 39). Kames's sense "that one could not study the law without studying it historically, without comparing it to other systems of jurisprudence, and without understanding the social and governmental contexts in which law had developed, was perhaps the single most important idea shaping Jefferson's approach to learning in the area of the law" (p. 80). Chapters 4 and 5 largely center on Jefferson's confrontation with race: first, as author of Notes on the State of Virginia (1785), and second, as a president who pursued an empire but "refused to see and take into account the complex histories" of North America's inhabitants (p. 232).
ISSN:0022-4642
2325-6893