John Selden
historical figure · 5 works · 6 mentions · 8 anchored passages
Selden
in the texts
The Freedom of the Seas (Mare Liberum)
English lawyer and scholar who wrote Mare Clausum against Grotius.
If it cannot be said that Grotius wears his learning “lightly like a flower”, the treatise of Selden is, in comparison, over-freighted with it;
In closing the preface to the Mare Clausum, Selden used language, which the undersigned quotes, albeit in an inverse sense, as a fit ending to this subject:
Therefore the distinguished English lawyer, scholar, and publicist, John Selden by name, bestirred himself in behalf of his country and wrote his Mare Clausum in 1617 or 1618, although it was not published until 1635, to refute the little tractate, Mare Liberum.
The Rights of War and Peace
English jurist who wrote Mare Clausum in reply to Grotius's Mare Liberum.
Married in 1609 to Marie van Reigersberg, whose devotion was worthy of his deep affection, and loaded with public honors, having been named the official historian of the United Provinces and the advocate-general of two provinces, Holland and Zeeland, Grotius set his hand to a work entitled “Mare Librum,” in which he defended the freedom of the sea and the maritime rights of his country against the …
An Essay on the Trial by Jury
Historical legal authority cited via Starkie on Slander for a reason supporting the ignorance-of-law maxim
’—Selden, (as quoted in the 2d edition of Starkie on Slander, Prelim.
The Unconstitutionality of Slavery
Legal scholar whose commentary on Fortescue is quoted distinguishing natural from arbitrary law.
“Laws are arbitrary or positive, and natural;
The Genius of the Common Law
Legal scholar referenced as possessing unique learning and judgment, contrasted with Coke's unhistorical approach.
If Coke had been endowed with the scholarly method of a Spelman (to set up a mark more within reach than John Selden’s unique learning and judgment) we might perhaps have had a historical school before the Germans.