In a Defiant Stance: The Conditions of Law in Massachusetts Bay, the Irish Comparison, and the Coming of the American RevolutionThe minimum of violence accompanying the success of the American Revolution resulted in large part, argues this book, from the conditions of law the British allowed in the American colonies. By contrast, Ireland's struggle for independence was prolonged, bloody, and bitter largely because of the repressive conditions of law imposed by Britain. Examining the most rebellious American colony, Massachusetts Bay, Professor Reid finds that law was locally controlled while imperial law was almost nonexistent as an influence on the daily lives of individuals. In Ireland the same English common law, because of imperial control of legal machinery, produced an opposite result. The Irish were forced to resort to secret, underground violence. The author examines various Massachusetts Bay institutions to show the consequences of whig party control, in contrast to the situation in 18th-century Ireland. A general conclusion is that law, the conditions of positive law, and the matter of who controls the law may have more significant effects on the course of events than is generally assumed. |
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... Protestants . The Americans sought to retain what they already had , local control and a responsive legislature . The entire thrust of American discontent was based on constitutional theory . " No representation , no taxation , " was ...
... Protestants . The Protestants of Ireland , Presbyterians as well as Anglicans , were not a conquered people . They were " settlers , " with whose legal condition the Americans could equate themselves as they too claimed to be settlers ...
... Protestant , they rested comfortably on the secure foundation of enforced Catholic labor . By the end of the eighteenth century the Catholics , who comprised three - fourths of the population , possessed one - fifteenth of the land ...
... Protestant ascendancy . The lawyers lived in Dublin whence the judges were sent out on circuit to apply a uniform judgment upon a people who had nothing to say about the substance of the law . " During the last decade of the eighteenth ...
... Protestant the treatment was more gentle . That was another status — religion — that the law fostered in Irish society . Catholics , William Sampson later wrote from his exile ... Protestant judge , a Protestant jury 23 THE CONDITIONS OF LAW.
Contents
1 | |
7 | |
17 | |
27 | |
Juries Lie Open to Management The Uses of the Grand Jury | 41 |
In Defiance of the Threats The Criminal Traverse Jury | 55 |
Unless Laws Are Enforced The Legitimacy of Whig Law | 65 |
By Consent of the Council The Import of Local Control | 74 |
Disjointed and Independent of Each Other The Conditions of Imperial Law | 100 |
The Government They Have Set Up The Emergence of Whig Government | 118 |
The Oppression of Centuries The Irish Comparison | 135 |
A Most Dreadful Ruin The Legal Mind of BritishRuled Ireland | 143 |
To Effect a Revolution The Execution of Imperial Law | 150 |
Enforced by Mobs The Rule of Law | 160 |
Notes | 174 |
Acknowledgments | 219 |
The Seeds of Anarchy The Execution of Whig Law | 85 |
The Same Leaven with the People The Legal Mind of the American Whig | 92 |
Index | 220 |