Reason Over Precedents: Origins of American Legal Thought

This legal and intellectual history shows how the education of American lawyers between 1779 and 1829 manifested a unique and distinct process of legal thought into the United States. This new American legal thought, based upon ideas imported from the works of European natural law writers, had a significant impact on the creation of a distinctly American legal system and was, and continues to be, instrumental in shaping American society.