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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... writs, the summonses, the juries seem alike, but due to men the common denominator is not there. The law flows from the same source, it takes the same form, yet it serves a different goal. The fate of Ireland in 1798 is not to be the ...
... writs ran in Wales and Ireland as well as in the former kingdom of England . They were lamenting the conditions controlling that law , not its rules , its maxims , or its principles . A glance at the judicial system reveals the imperial ...
... writs flowed from Dublin castle . The common law of England might run in both colonies , but the forces that controlled that law were not the same . The constitutional argument also had to be different . Irish reformers were primarily ...
... writ of trespass , but such would be the court's law . The jurors could adopt a different law and the law they applied became the " law , " at least for the case at bar . There are three simple and related points about the conditions of ...
... writ was trespass , and as Bernard put it , " The pretence for this action is , that the seizure was illegal and a trespass , and that the payment of Mr. Erving was not voluntary , but extorted by violence and duress . " 15 The governor ...
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 |