Blackstone's Commentaries on Laws of England & Charles Finney's Revivals

American Minute ^ | August 16, 2019 | Bill Federer

[Perseverando]

America's laws are largely derived from English Common Law.

Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, published 1765-1769 by Oxford's Clarendon Press, articulated English Common Law in a way that powerfully influenced America's founders.

Blackstone's work is considered the definitive pre-Revolutionary source of common law by United States courts.

Blackstone wrote:

"The principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature."

Blackstone drew upon previous documents highlighting Creator-given rights, which then crystallized in America's Declaration of Independence.

Historian Dr. Marshall Foster of the World History Institute wrote:

"The Declaration stands at the apex of the biblical freedom documents of history. These include: The Torah of Moses (about 1400 BC); Magna Carta (1215); The Declaration of Arbroath in Scotland (1320); The Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants (1572); Lex Rex (1644); The Sanquhar Declaration in Scotland (1680); and The English Bill of Rights (1689) ..."

Dr. Foster continued, quoting Francis A. Shaeffer:

"There are limits to monarchies, since everyone, from kings to the common man, are subject to the rule of law—God’s law. When a king or magistrate violates God’s law, he loses his authority, and people may then have the right to overthrow this ruler.”

Highlighting biblical law's role of protecting an individual's rights, Blackstone wrote:

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer."

Blackstone wrote:

"Of great importance to the public is the preservation of this personal liberty;

for if once it were left in the power of any the highest magistrate to imprison arbitrarily whomever he or his officers thought proper ... there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities."

[Perseverando]

Time for another great American history lesson from American Minute.

[Equine1952]

I’ve promised myself to read and study Blackstone because I have been convinced for a long time our forefathers drew a lot from his thinking. It’s still on my bucket list which is way down on the wife’s too do list. Being retired didn’t put more hours in my day dangit.

[elbook]

The current crop of Commies like the Gang of Twenty (or TwentyTwo or is it now Nineteen??????) DemoRat candidates (and the rest) ONLY READ LITTLE RED BOOKS

So no, they dont care at all what someone intelligent and wise wrote so long ago, nor that our country was founded with it

[Albion Wilde]

bump

[Reno89519]

Is there a public domain version of this book, e.g., in PDF form? Link please!

[Reno89519]

This is in the public domain, copyright expired long ago. This page has links to load it into Kindle or other apps, etc. I just added it to my iPad Kindle app. https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/blackstone-commentaries-on-the-laws-of-england-in-four-books-vol-1

[Equine1952]

Thanks for the info. Mama ain’t gonna like me sitting on my arse reading it until I start reading it to her. Might get some priority for my bucket list.

[CatoRenasci]

I read Blackstone’s Commentaries back in the late ‘70s when I was in law school. I found them fascinating and helpful, but I think one really needs a solid background in English history to understand Blackstone, and to understand how the Common Law evolved. There are some good books on the development of the Common Law, but other than Holmes’ fairly good little book, they’re pretty much for specialists and/or are hard to come by. Previously trained as an European historian (with an minor field in modern US history), I read several of them the Summer before I started law school. Helps also to have read Locke, Hume, and Montesquieu. Justice Storey’s edition of Blackstone in the 1820s is also useful in understanding how Common Law evolved in the US after the Revolution. ... sigh. It’s been far too long since I looked at this stuff.....