William Blackstone

William Blackstone as illustrated in his Commentaries on the Laws of England.

Sir William Blackstone (July 10, 1723 – February 14, 1780) was an English jurist and professor who produced the historical and analytic treatise on the common law called Commentaries on the Laws of England, first published in four volumes over 1765–1769. It had an extraordinary success, said to have brought the author £14,000, and still remains an important source on classical views of the common law and its principles.

Life

William Blackstone was born in Cheapside, London in July 1732, the son of a prosperous silk merchant. He was orphaned at an early age and was placed in the care of his uncle. He began his education at Charterhouse School and at the age of fifteen was sent to continue his studies at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1743 (1744?) he was elected a fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford, and was called to the bar as a barrister at the Middle Temple in 1746. As a reward for his services he was appointed steward of its manors in May 1749. In addition, this opportunity was an effort to advance the interests of the college. Unsuccessful in law, he returned to Oxford in 1753 to deliver a course of lectures on English law. He became the first occupant of the newly founded Vinerian Professorship of law in 1758. Blackstone lived at Castle Priory in Wallingford, and is buried at St Peter's Church in the town.

Work

Blackstone's lectures were designed as an introduction to the whole of the law, and they were an immediate success with his students. It was the first time that English law had been made easily readable and comprehensible to the lay mind. Shortly thereafter, the lectures were published as Commentaries on the Laws of England. The series was comprised of four volumes, each representing a different theme, in order to present the whole of British law in a logical and comprehensive way. The first volume, published in 1765, was entitled "Rights of Persons"; the majority of the book based on the "Absolute Rights of Individuals". It also covered topics such as inheritance of the throne, duties of Magistrates, allegiance to one's nation, marriage, and guardianship. The second volume entitled "Rights of Things" encompased the rights that people have in things. "Private Wrongs" (known today as 'torts') was the discussion basis for the third book. The fourth and final volume was published in 1769 and covered "Public Wrongs", meaning crimes and punishments, including offenses against God and religion.

The book was quoted in the Courts and treated almost as an authority.

Blackstone published treatises on Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forests. In 1761 he won election as a Member of Parliament for Hindon and "took silk" as a king's counsel. He also wrote some poetry.

Blackstone and his work occasionally appear in literature. For example, Blackstone receives mention in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. A bust of Blackstone is a typical ornament of a lawyer's office in early Perry Mason novels, and in Anatomy of a Murder. Blackstone's Commentaries are also mentioned in Charles Portis's comic novel, The Dog of the South.

Blackstone wrote his books on common law shortly before the United States Constitution was written. The terms and phrases used by the framers often derived from Blackstone's works.

United States courts frequently quote Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England as the definitive pre-Revolutionary War source of common law; in particular, the United States Supreme Court quotes from Blackstone's work whenever they wish to engage in historical discussion that goes back that far, or further (for example, when discussing the intent of the Framers of the Constitution). His work has been used most forcefully as of late by Justice Clarence Thomas. US and other common law courts mention with strong approval Blackstone's formulation also known as Blackstone's ratio popularly stated as "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" — although he did not first express the principle.

Blackstone's work was more often synthetic than orginal, but his writing was organized, clear, and dignified, which brings his great work within the category of general literature. He also had a turn for neat and polished verse, of which he gave proof in The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse.

Blackstone and Property Jurisprudence

Blackstone's characterization of property rights as "sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe," has often been quoted in judicial opinions and secondary legal literature as the dominant Western concept of property. In spite of the frequency with which this conception is quoted, however, it is now discredited or understood as a mere formalism, since in reality property rights are encumbered by numerous factors, including the will of the state.

Blackstone and anti-Catholicism

William Blackstone shared the general Anti-Catholic prejudices of his age and millieu. As discussed in more detail in the article on Anti-Catholicism, his Commentaries summarized his attitude toward Roman Catholics as follows:

As to papists, what has been said of the Protestant dissenters would hold equally strong for a general toleration of them; provided their separation was founded only upon difference of opinion in religion, and their principles did not also extend to a subversion of the civil government. If once they could be brought to renounce the supremacy of the pope, they might quietly enjoy their seven sacraments, their purgatory, and auricular confession; their worship of reliques and images; nay even their transubstantiation. But while they acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they cannot complain if the laws of that kingdom will not treat them upon the footing of good subjects.(very good subjects)

— Bl. Comm. IV, c.4 ss. iii.2, p. *54

Trivia

Blackstone's grandson William Seymour Blackstone was an MP for Wallingford.

A statue honoring Blackstone is located on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. Another one exists in the library of All Souls College, Oxford, where Blackstone was a fellow. It shows him dressed as a Roman emperor.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• This article incorporates public domain text from: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London, J.M. Dent & sons; New York, E.P. Dutton.

External links

• Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, from the Avalon Project at Yale Law School
• A Biography of William Blackstone (1723 - 1780)
• Royal Berkshire History: Sir William Blackstone]

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