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Justice Accused
About this book
What should a judge do when he must hand down a ruling based on a law that he considers unjust or oppressive? This question is examined through a series of problems concerning unjust law that arose with respect to slavery in nineteenth-century America.
“Cover’s book is splendid in many ways. His legal history and legal philosophy are both first class. . . . This is, for a change, an interdisciplinary work that is a credit to both disciplines.”—Ronald Dworkin, Times Literary Supplement
“Scholars should be grateful to Cover for his often brilliant illumination of tensions created in judges by changing eighteenth- and nineteenth-century jurisprudential attitudes and legal standards. . . An exciting adventure in interdisciplinary history.”—Harold M. Hyman, American Historical Review
“A most articulate, sophisticated, and learned defense of legal formalism. . . Deserves and needs to be widely read.”—Don Roper, Journal of American History
“An excellent illustration of the way in which a burning moral issue relates to the American judicial process. The book thus has both historical value and a very immediate importance.”—Edwards A. Stettner, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
“A really fine book, an important contribution to law and to history.”—Louis H. Pollak
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Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prelude: Of Creon and Captain Vere
- 1. The Intellectual Tradition: Slavery, Natural Law, and Judicial Positivism in the Eighteenth Century
- Part I: Nature Tamed
- 2. Natural Right in Legislation
- 3. Judicial Construction of a Natural Law Text: The "Free and Equal" Clauses
- 4. Statutory Interpretation: In Favorem Libertatis?
- 5. Conflict of Laws
- 6. Perspectives From International Law
- Part II: Rules, Roles, and Rebels: Nature's Place Disputed
- 7. Some Paradigms of Judicial Rhetoric
- 8. Formal Assumptions of the Judiciary
- 9. Formal Assumptions of the Ant Isla Very Forces
- 10. Positivism Established: The Fugitive Slave Law to 1850
- 11. Positivism and Crisis: The Fugitive Slave Law, 1850—1859
- Postscript to Part II
- Part III: The Moral-Formal Dilemma
- Introductory Note
- 12. Context for Conscience
- 13. Judicial Responses
- Postscript to Part III
- Appendix
- Notes
- Index