The Common Law Constitution of the American Republic
A conference on the remarkable legal inheritance we possess in our common law constitution, and how we might rehabilitate its role within American law
Upcoming Event
Recent months of national bureaucratic rule via emergency orders highlight an unhappy condition long in development in American law. Our venerable legal traditions are being replaced by the dictates of expert administrators who view society, from their perch above, as a problem to be solved and controlled as a unit. This replacement vision and method of control represents a decisive turn from our common law heritage.
But what is the “common law”?
And what makes the historic American legal system that embraces common law standards and ways of thinking preferable to contemporary alternatives?
These alternatives include not only rule by experts in distant administrative agencies, but also courts impatient with tradition and Western civilization, who are anxious to declare unprecedented rights of individual autonomy that redefine personhood, family, and community institutions.
The Hale Institute is pleased to invite you to a conference presenting lectures and discussion from two common law scholars, Professor James Stoner and Professor Adam MacLeod. These scholars will elaborate the remarkable legal inheritance we possess in our common law constitution, and suggest how we might rehabilitate its role within American law.
Lectures:
“The Good Old Common Law and the New American Founding” | Professor James Stoner
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are rightly seen as innovative documents, representing what James Madison called Americans' “manly spirit” not to let “a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience” (Federalist 14). But both documents are deeply rooted in unwritten common law, carried over from England and adjusted to American circumstances. Common law constituted no small part of American political experience at the time of the Founding and formed American common sense regarding liberty and justice.
“Discovering the Wheel: Ancient Legal Artifacts for the Age of Innovation" | Professor Adam MacLeod
Though we live in an age of moral and technological innovation, we are not very creative at problem-making. On the surface, our practical problems may look different from those confronted by Americans one hundred or three hundred years ago. But they are essentially the same. Our common law is the repository of centuries’ worth of solutions to recurring practical problems. It is full of norms and institutions that we can use to solve our most pressing problems today.
Panel discussion and Q&A will follow the lectures.
Conference is free and open to the public.
There is no cost to register but registration is required. Registration deadline is January 20th.
James R. Stoner, Jr.
James R. Stoner, Jr. is the Hermann Moyse, Jr., Professor and Director of the Eric Voegelin Institute in the Department of Political Science at Louisiana State University. He is the author of Common-Law Liberty (Kansas, 2003) and Common Law and Liberal Theory (Kansas, 1992), and co-editor of four books, most recently The Political Thought of the Civil War (Kansas 2018). He earned his A.B. from Middlebury College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and has been a visiting professor and fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He has taught at LSU since 1988.
Adam J. MacLeod
Adam MacLeod is Professor of Law at Faulkner University, Jones School of Law and Research Fellow of the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy. He is author or co-editor of four books, including the fourth edition of Christie and Martin's Jurisprudence.
