Dimensions of Social and Legal Change: The Making and Remaking of the Common Law Tradition in Nineteenth-Century America

1986 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 233
Author(s):  
Calvin Woodard
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
The Common

Law Making

2019 ◽  
pp. 206-238
Author(s):  
John Baker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Inns Of Court ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Learning ◽  
Law Making

This chapter examines the history of case-law, legislation, and equity, with particular reference to legal change. The common law was evidenced by judicial precedent, but single decisions were not binding until the nineteenth century. It was also rooted in professional understanding, the ‘common learning’ acquired in the inns of court. It was based on ‘reason’, operating within a rigid procedural framework. Legal change could be effected by fictions, equity, and legislation, but (except during the Interregnum) there was little systematic reform before the nineteenth century. Legislation was external to the common law, but it had to be interpreted by common-law judges and so there was a symbiotic relationship between statute-law and case-law. Codification has sometimes been proposed, but with limited effect.

The Authority of the Administration

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-66
Author(s):  
Janet McLean
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
The Common ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

The authority claims of the administration have undergone radical change with consequences for the shape and content of administrative law. In the seventeenth century, authority was claimed in office, as a means to limit the imposition of the King’s will and to secure the independence of officials, especially the judges. In the eighteenth century, virtue, property, and independence became the basis for office, and the common law sought to enhance such authority through notions of public trust. After the nineteenth-century transition to more centralised and bureaucratic hierarchy, democracy became the new source of authority for the administration, reinforced by the ultra vires doctrine. In each era, the authority claims of the administration have been reflected in the frameworks for judicial supervision. In this way the common law has simultaneously constituted and controlled authority. In the present day we are in the process of rethinking whence administrators derive their legitimate authority and the theoretical foundations of judicial review. Beginning with the authority claims of the administration and framing a juridical response which reflects and tests such claims would be a good place to start.

The Chartists and the Constitution: Revisiting British Popular Constitutionalism

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Common ◽  
Fundamental Law ◽  
English Law ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Popular Constitutionalism

AbstractDespite having a powerful influence on the historiography of radicalism and nineteenth-century politics for the past several decades, the language of the constitution has not recently received scholarly attention. In Chartist and radical historiography, the constitution is usually treated as a narrative of national political development. This article extends the horizons of Chartist constitutionalism by exploring its similarities with American constitutionalism. By doing so, it also opens up questions regarding the ideas of the movement. Like the Americans sixty years before, the Chartists were confronted by a parliament that they believed had superseded its constitutional authority. This perception was informed by a belief that the constitution rested on the authority of the fixed principles of fundamental law, which they argued placed limits beyond which Parliament had no power to reach. As a result, the Chartists imagined that the British constitution functioned like a written constitution. To support this claim, they drew on a sophisticated interpretation of English law that argued that the common law was closely related to natural law.

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