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. |
From inside the book
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... attorney such as Ireland's John Philpot Curran . None of the Stamp Act rioters was put on trial ; no member was indicted of the mobs that tarred and feathered lories in Boston or forced every stamp agent in America to resign his ...
... attorney general , the advocate general , and most other law officers in colonial Massachusetts were native sons , they were not imported placemen . Massachusetts was not , however , completely free of some of the other aspects of ...
... attorney general of Massachusetts and advocate general of the vice - admiralty court sitting at Boston . Sewall surrendered the advocate generalship , but stayed on as attorney general as well he might . He did not have to go to Halifax ...
... attorney generalship until 1775 , when as a tory he could no longer function in it . He remained on as judge of the vice - admiralty for over twenty years , never living in Nova Scotia , but collecting the salary , perhaps as a pension ...
... attorneys of Massachusetts Bay . But no Massachusetts lawyer would have asked the question O'Connor asked . They praised their law ; they did not doubt it ; and their praise was not the familiar chauvinism of insular common lawyers ...
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 |