William Blackstone
historical figure · 13 works · 67 mentions · 141 anchored passages
Blackstone · Sir William Blackstone · 4 Blackstone · Blackst. Comm. · Bl. · Black-stone · Blackst. · Blackstone J. · Blackstonian · Comm.
spoken of as
2 expressionsBlackstone31 mentions
The Law of Torts (English) · An Essay on the Trial by Jury (English) · Institutes of Roman Law (English) · Lectures on the Early History of Institutions (English) · Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England (English) · Ancient Law (English)
a distinction important for a state of society where open violence is common, but of little use for the arrangement of modern law, though it is still prominent in Blackstone’s exposition.
Sir William Blackstone8 mentions
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John (English) · The Law of Torts (English) · The Genius of the Common Law (English) · Law in a Free State (English)
Sir William Blackstone was the first commentator to correct this mistake.
in the texts
An Essay on the Trial by Jury
English legal commentator repeatedly cited as a source and interpretive authority on Magna Carta's charters.
Blackstone cites it as follows:
Blackstone suggests that this may be the true reading.
A copy of this charter is given in a note in Blackstone’s Introduction to the Charters.
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John
Eighteenth-century jurist and editor of the Great Charter, cited throughout as an authority on the charter's text, seal, and circumstances.
The Great Charter, p.
Blackstone, Great Charter, p.
Blackstone, Great Charter, xvii.
The Law of Torts
Author of the Commentaries on the Laws of England, repeatedly cited as the classical statement of common-law doctrine.
Blackst.
Blackst.
Blackst.
Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public Opinion in England
Eighteenth-century jurist whose optimistic view of the English constitution is credited with underlying the period of legislative quiescence.
Benthamism is a definite creed.
Blackstonian toryism was the historical reminiscence of paternal government;
Political or legislative changes were first checked by that pride in the English constitution, and intense satisfaction with things as they were, which was inherited from a preceding generation, and is best represented by the studied optimism of Blackstone;
Institutes of Roman Law
English jurist cited for comparison between Roman naturalization effects and English Naturalization/Denization.
The grant of patria potestas by the Emperor to the new-made citizen, § 93, may be assimilated to the legislative grant of patria potestas in adrogatio.
The use of the rod or wand as representative of the spear, the symbol of dominion, may be paralleled in English law by the delivery of a staff as the symbol of power and possession in the conveyance of copyholds.
see Blackstone’s Commentaries.
Lectures on the Early History of Institutions
Eighteenth-century English legal writer, author of the Commentaries, whose approach provoked Bentham's and Austin's works.
Now nothing could be more unfortunate for the philosophy of law than that the system of the ‘Province of Jurisprudence Determined’ should come to be regarded simply as Austin’s system—as standing by the side of Blackstone’s or Hegel’s or any other system—as interchangeable with it or equivalent to it.
’ With these words Blackstone begins that Chapter on ‘the Nature of Laws in General,’ which may almost be said to have made Bentham and Austin into Jurists by virtue of sheer repulsion.
Other authors, as Blackstone tells us, explained it by a supposed right of the Seigneur or lord, now very generally regarded as apocryphal, which raised a presumption of the eldest son’s illegitimacy.
Ancient Law
English jurist whose introductory chapters restate the Roman hypothesis.
They may be read in the introductory chapters of our own Blackstone, who has transcribed them textually from Burlamaqui, and wherever the manuals published in the present day for the guidance of the student or the practitioner begin with any discussion of the first principles of law, it always resolves itself into a restatement of the Roman hypothesis.
“The earth,” he writes, “and all things therein were the general property of mankind from the immediate gift of the Creator.
It is an Individual who, in the picture drawn by Blackstone, “is in the occupation of a determined spot of ground for rest, for shade, or the like.
The Genius of the Common Law
Eighteenth-century legal commentator (author of the Commentaries) cited both as an authority and, once, as mistaken.
Blackstone conjectured that the action of Assumpsit, the regular modern action of contract, was the action on the case answering to the thirteenth-century writ of Covenant:
The partial reforms in pleading effected in the early part of the eighteenth century and commemorated, as we have already seen, by Blackstone, are almost as little remembered at this day.
We may learn from Blackstone, who followed his Elizabethan authorities quite correctly, that it was founded in the king’s unexhausted duty to see justice done where the ordinary means fell short or were frustrated.
Law in a Free State
The English jurist whose Commentaries are quoted and discussed on maternal duty, illegitimacy at birth, and criticism of Scotch legitimation law.
Blackstone very sagaciously criticises the Scotch law as neither politic nor kind.
In the quaint and childlike words of Blackstone, Susan “finds a thousand obstacles in her way-shame, remorse, the constraint of her sex, and the rigor of laws—that stifle her inclinations to perform this duty;
” These are the words of Sir William Blackstone, but they are good enough for me.
The Unconstitutionality of Slavery
English legal commentator whose work is invoked through his editor regarding habeas corpus and slavery in England.
Christian, one of Blackstone’s editors, says that it is this writ that makes slavery impossible in England.
”—Blackstone.
”—Blackstone, Vol.
Dissertations on Early Law and Custom
English jurist used as a chronological reference point.
Hammond, to the end of the eighteenth century, consequently till after the time of Blackstone;
The Rights of War and Peace
English legal scholar noted for having written about the Magna Carta.
Although Blackstone and other prominent lawyers have written upon it, information about it is hard to obtain.
Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated
English jurist whose classification of rights into persons and things is invoked at the outset of the discussion of property.
Blackstone has treated of “The rights of persons, and the rights of things;