1826 1ed American Law Commentaries James Kent Common Law Jurisprudence New York



“the standard general treatise on law in the United States!” – Lawrence Friedman



James Kent was a jurist whose decisions and written commentaries shaped the early common law of the U.S. and influenced jurisprudence in England and other common-law countries. As chancellor of the New York Court of Chancery (1814–23), he is said to have made equity jurisprudence effective for the first time in U.S. legal history. Kent’s ‘Commentaries’ was the first general legal treatise which was based exclusively on the common law of the United States. Kent followed the same general framework laid out in the first three volumes of Blackstone’s ‘Commentaries’, omitting all discussion of royalty and the crown, while adding considerations from the U.S and various state constitutions.

Marvin says,

"England has only furnished one Blackstone, and the American rival equals him in classic purity and elegance of style and surpasses him in extent and copiousness of learning. What do Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries contain, which are discussed with such richness and accuracy by Chancellor Kent? Scarcely nothing, and a comparison, shows the American author to have surpassed his rival in comprehensiveness of research, and fullness of illustration, and to have equaled him in clearness and cogency of reasoning" [Marvin].



Larned calls it a

"a great work, marked by a firm grasp of essentials, by explicit statement of fundamental principles, and by a clear, unaffected, straightforward style, which avoids any pedantic exhibition of learning."



This 1826 first edition volume one includes three parts:

Pt. I. Of the law of nations

Pt. II. Of the government and constitutional jurisprudence of the United States

Pt. III. Of the various sources of the municipal law of the several states



Item number: #9061

Price: $399



KENT, James



Commentaries on American law



New York: O. Halsted, 1826. First Edition



Details:

Collation: Complete with all pages; volume 1

vii, 508

References: Cohen 5398; Larned 2761; Marvin Legal Bibliography (1847) 437-438 [recording the 5th edition];

Provenance:

Bookplate – A. Beckwith, U.S. Army

Handwritten – Theodore Gaillard Hunt, 1830

Theodore Gaillard Hunt (1805 – 1893) was a 19th century U.S. politician and Civil War officer.

Hunt member of the U. S. House of Representatives representing the state of Louisiana. He served one term as a Whig. In 1854, he ran for Congress and lost as a candidate of the American (Know-Nothing) Party.

During the American Civil War, Hunt was the colonel of the 5th Louisiana Infantry in 1861-62 and later a brigadier general in the Louisiana militia. After New Orleans fell into Union hands, Hunt, who had opposed secession, resigned from the Confederate Army and became Adjutant General of Union Louisiana.

Language: English

Binding: Leather; tight & secure

Size: ~9in X 5.75in (23cm x 14.5cm)

Very rare and desirable



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9061

Excellent.