Everything about William Blackstone totally explained
Sir William Blackstone (originally pronounced Blexstun) (
10 July 1723 –
14 February 1780) was an
English jurist and professor who produced the historical and analytic treatise on the
common law called
Commentaries on the Laws of England, first published in four volumes over 1765–1769. It had an extraordinary success, reportedly bringing the author £14,000, and still remains an important source on classical views of the common law and its principles.
Biography
Blackstone was born in
Cheapside in 1723, the posthumous son of a
London silk mercer. He received his education at
Charterhouse School and at
Pembroke College,
Oxford. In
1743 he became a fellow of
All Souls College, Oxford, and he was
called to the bar as a
barrister at the
Middle Temple in 1746. After practising in the courts of
Westminster for several years, without great success, he returned to Oxford in
1758 when another lawyer,
Charles Viner, established an endowed chair at the university for a lecturer in law. Viner's endowed chair became known as the
Vinerian professorship, and it exists to the present day. At this time, he was appointed Principal of New Inn Hall (now
St. Peter's College, Oxford). Blackstone lived at Castle Priory in
Wallingford, and is buried at St Peter's Church in the town.
In addition to the
Commentaries, Blackstone published treatises on
Magna Carta and the
Charter of the Forests. In 1761 he won election as a
Member of Parliament for
Hindon and "took silk" as a
king's counsel. He also wrote some poetry.
Blackstone and his work occasionally appear in
literature. For example, Blackstone receives mention in
Herman Melville's
Moby-Dick. A bust of Blackstone is a typical ornament of a lawyer's office in early
Perry Mason novels, and in
Anatomy of a Murder. Blackstone's
Commentaries are also mentioned in Charles Portis's comic novel,
The Dog of the South. It is also mentioned in
Harper Lee's
To Kill a Mockingbird as the tool used to teach Calpurnia, a black woman, how to read. Blackstone wrote his books on common law shortly before the
United States Constitution was written. Many terms and phrases used by the framers were derived from Blackstone's works.
U.S. courts frequently quote Blackstone's
Commentaries on the Laws of England as the definitive pre-
Revolutionary War source of common law; in particular, the
United States Supreme Court quotes from Blackstone's work whenever they wish to engage in historical discussion that goes back that far, or further (for example, when discussing the intent of the
Framers of the Constitution). His work has been used most forcefully as of late by Justice
Clarence Thomas. U.S. and other common law courts mention with strong approval
Blackstone's formulation also known as
Blackstone's ratio popularly stated as "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" — although he didn't first express the principle.
Blackstone's work was more often synthetic than original, but his writing was organized, clear, and dignified, which brings his great work within the category of general literature. He also had a turn for neat and polished verse, of which he gave proof in
The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse.
Blackstone and Property Jurisprudence
Blackstone's characterization of
property rights as "sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe," has often been quoted in judicial opinions and secondary legal literature as the dominant Western concept of property. In spite of the frequency with which this conception is quoted, however, the phrase is often presented without taking into account the greater context of Blackstone's thought on the subject of property. Blackstone likely offered the statement as a rhetorical flourish to begin his discussion, given that even in his age, individual property rights were not sole and absolute. Property owners must rely on the enforcement powers of the state, in any event, for the realization of their rights.
Blackstone and anti-Catholicism
William Blackstone shared the general
Anti-Catholic sentiments of his age and milieu. As discussed in more detail in the article on
Anti-Catholicism, his
Commentaries summarized his attitude toward
Roman Catholics as follows:
» As to papists, what has been said of the
Protestant dissenters would hold equally strong for a general toleration of them; provided their separation was founded only upon difference of opinion in religion, and their principles didn't also extend to a subversion of the civil government. If once they could be brought to renounce the supremacy of the pope, they might quietly enjoy their seven sacraments, their purgatory, and auricular confession; their worship of reliques and images; nay even their transubstantiation. But while they acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they can't complain if the laws of that kingdom won't treat them upon the footing of good subjects.
:— Bl. Comm. IV, c.4 ss. iii.2, p. *54
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