The Transatlantic Constitution - Colonial Legal Culture and the Empire (Paperback)

Departing from traditional approaches to colonial legal history, Mary Sarah Bilder argues that American law and legal culture developed within the framework of an evolving, unwritten transatlantic constitution that lawyers, legislators, and litigants on both sides of the Atlantic understood. The central tenet of this constitution--that colonial laws and customs could not be repugnant to the laws of England but could diverge for local circumstances--shaped the legal development of the colonial world.

Focusing on practices rather than doctrines, Bilder describes how the pragmatic and flexible conversation about this constitution shaped colonial law: the development of the legal profession; the place of English law in the colonies; the existence of equity courts and legislative equitable relief; property rights for women and inheritance laws; commercial law and currency reform; and laws governing religious establishment. Using as a case study the corporate colony of Rhode Island, which had the largest number of appeals of any mainland colony to the English Privy Council, she reconstructs a largely unknown world of pre-Constitutional legal culture.

General

Imprint:	Harvard University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	February 2008
First published:	March 2008
Authors:	Mary Sarah Bilder
Dimensions:	235 x 156 x 21mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	308
ISBN-13:	978-0-674-02719-0
Categories:	Books > Law > Laws of other jurisdictions & general law > Constitutional & administrative law > General
LSN:	0-674-02719-1
Barcode:	9780674027190

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