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Epilogue

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2019

Andrew Forsyth
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
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Summary

How should law, morality, and religion interact in America today? The varied strands of natural-law reflection on common law offer resources and warnings to natural-law proponents and critics alike. In reflecting on the stories of the preceding chapters, it becomes clear that common law is not simply “judge-made law,” regardless of today’s prevailing definition, nor is natural law necessarily divorced from human lawmakers, judges included. Common law and natural law are co-constitutive and, in at least some ways, inseparable in American history. Blackstone formed the system of modern common law, after all, in reference to natural law’s rights and principles. Story treated natural law not merely as a source of common law’s authority but as its structuring spirit: justifying specific enactments, defenses, and punishments, and coordinating moral and civic obligations. And yet, “common law” and “natural law” are mutable: shifting in their perceived purposes, always enmeshed in the presuppositions of a particular time and place, even as natural law is attested by some as law existent beyond interpretation. The Puritans’ natural law was a lodestar in a fallen world. The Revolutionaries’ celebrated our rational capacities. What, if anything, is natural law today?

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Chapter
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Common Law and Natural Law in America
From the Puritans to the Legal Realists
, pp. 146 - 148
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Epilogue
  • Andrew Forsyth, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: Common Law and Natural Law in America
  • Online publication: 05 April 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108576772.008
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  • Epilogue
  • Andrew Forsyth, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: Common Law and Natural Law in America
  • Online publication: 05 April 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108576772.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Epilogue
  • Andrew Forsyth, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: Common Law and Natural Law in America
  • Online publication: 05 April 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108576772.008
Available formats
×