Law Writers and the Courts explores the profound yet often overlooked influence of legal commentators on the shaping of American constitutional law in the decades following the Civil War. Clyde E. Jacobs examines how Thomas M. Cooley, Christopher G. Tiedeman, and John F. Dillon--three of the era's most influential law writers--supplied both the legal profession and the courts with doctrines that crystallized laissez-faire ideology into constitutional principle. Through their treatises, these publicists advanced the doctrines of liberty of contract and public purpose, reshaping the scope of state police power, taxation, and regulation. Jacobs situates their writings against the broader struggle over property rights, democratic reform, and the emergence of industrial capitalism, showing how ideas that began in scholarly works came to be invoked by courts and accepted as binding law.
More than a narrative of legal thought,
Law Writers and the Courts traces the intellectual transmission of conservative constitutional principles from treatise to tribunal. Jacobs charts the rise of liberty of contract from its early formulation to its eventual acceptance by the Supreme Court of the United States, alongside the development and decline of the public purpose limitation on taxing power. In doing so, he illuminates how law writers, far from being passive commentators, played an active role in constructing the constitutional order of the Gilded Age. This book remains an essential resource for legal historians, political scientists, and anyone interested in the contested foundations of American constitutional law.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1954.
