Camdenism v. Mansfieldism
With thanks to Jon Roland and
In this letter to Madison near the end of his life, Jefferson identifies a
major threat to fidelity to the Constitution, Mansfieldism, the school of
jurisprudence that stemmed from Lord Mansfield, who served as a judge in
England during the period leading up to the War of Independence. He was
opposed by Lord Camden, whose followers were usually termed Whigs, but which
we may refer to as Camdenians. See http://www.constitution.org/bcp/man-cam.htm
"Camdenism" is essentially the judicial philosophy of Jefferson and Madison,
which prevailed during the early days of the Republic, but was undermined
thereafter.
The main differences between the Mansfieldians and Camdenians centered on
the role of the jury. Camdenians favored a strong role, in which all issues
of law are argued in the presence of the jury and they judge the law as well
as the facts in reaching a general verdict of "guilty" or "not guilty". The
Mansfieldians favored a restricted role of for the jury, where they are not
presented with the legal issues, but only with fact issues. The Camdenians
maintained that the law could not be separated from the facts in reaching a
general verdict, especially in a republic in which all governmental powers
are delegated by the people, and officials may not be authorized to exercise
the powers they do.
The Mansfieldians gained ascendance by the device of requiring lawyers to
make their motions and pleadings in writing, and to present them to the
judge to be decided in chambers, rather than arguing them orally in the
presence of the jury.
The Mansfieldians also tended to give greater weight to the doctrine of
stare decisis and the practice of considering only the most recent
precedents, and treating them as more authoritative than the text or
legislative history of written law. Their philosophy led inevitably to the
"legal realism" set forth by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in his
article at http://www.constitution.org/lrev/owh/path_law.htm
-------- Original Message --------
(quoted in "The Unsettling of America" by Wendell Berry, p. 144)
"...long succession of years of stunted crops..."
Mr. Jefferson makes a distinction between Sir Edward Coke and "the honeyed
Mansfieldism of Blackstone". The former he styles a Whig; the latter a
Tory. The Jeffersonian ideal will be held forever in contempt by those
persons who have not been schooled, by oversight or by design, in its
intricacies.
----------
XVI-157
TO JAMES MADISON.
MONTICELLO, February 17, 1826.
DEAR SIR --* * * * * * *
Immediately on seeing the overwhelming vote of the House of
Representatives against giving us another dollar, I rode to the
University and desired Mr. Brockenbrough to engage in nothing new, to
stop everything on hand which could be done without, and to employ all
his force and funds in finishing the circular room for the books, and
the anatomical theatre. These cannot be done without ; and for these
and all our debts we have funds enough. But I think it prudent then to
clear the decks thoroughly, to see how we shall stand, and what we may
accomplish further. In the meantime, there have arrived for us in
different ports of the United States, ten boxes of books from Paris,
seven from London, and from Germany I know not how many ; in all,
perhaps, about twenty-five boxes. Not one of these can be opened until
the book-room is completely finished, and all the shelves ready to
receive their charge directly from the boxes as they shall be
opened. This cannot be till May. I hear nothing definitive of the
three thousand dollars duty of which we are asking the remission from
Congress. In the selection of our Law Professor, we must be rigorously
attentive to his political principles. You will recollect that before
the Revolution, Coke Littleton was the universal elementary book of
law students, and a sounder Whig never wrote, nor of profounder
learning in the orthodox doctrines of the British constitution, or in
what were called English liberties. You remember also that our lawyers
were then all Whigs. But when his black-letter text, and uncouth, but
cunning learning got out of fashion, and the honeyed Mansfieldism of
Blackstone became the students' hornbook, from that moment, that
profession (the nursery of our Congress) began to slide into toryism,
and nearly all the young brood of lawyers now are of that hue. They
suppose themselves, indeed, to be Whigs, because they no longer know
what Whigism or republicanism means. It is in our seminary that that
vestal flame is to be kept alive; it is thence it is to spread anew
over our own and the sister States. If we are true and vigilant in our
trust, within a dozen or twenty years a majority of our own
legislature will be from one school, and many disciples will have
carried its doctrines home with them to their several States, and will
have leavened thus the whole mass. New York has taken strong ground in
vindication of the Constitution; South Carolina had already done the
same. Although I was against our leading, I am equally against
omitting to follow in the same line, and backing them firmly; and I
hope that yourself or some other will mark out the track to be pursued
by us.
You will have seen in the newspapers some proceedings in the
legislature, which have cost me much mortification. My own debts had
become considerable, but not beyond the effect of some lopping of
property, which would have been little felt, when our friend * * * *
gave me the coup de grace. Ever since that I have been paying twelve
hundred dollars a year interest on his debt, which, with my own, was
absorbing so much of my annual income, as that the maintenance of my
family was making deep and rapid inroads on my capital, and had
already done it. Still, sales at a fair price would leave me
competently provided. Had crops and prices for several years been such
as to maintain a steady competition of substantial bidders at market,
all would have been safe. But the long succession of years of stunted
crops, of reduced. prices, the general prostration of the farming
business, under levies for the support of manufacturers, etc., with
the calamitous fluctuations of value in our paper medium, have kept
agriculture in a state of abject depression, which has peopled the
Western States by silently breaking up those on the Atlantic, and
glutted the land market, while it drew off its bidders. In such a
state of things, property has lost its character of being a resource
for debts. High land in Bedford, which, in the days of our plethory,
sold readily for from fifty to one hundred dollars the acre, (and such
sales were many then,) would not now sell for more than from ten to
twenty dollars, or one-quarter or one-fifth of its former
price. Reflecting on these things, the practice occurred to me, of
selling, on fair valuation, and by way of lottery, often resorted to
before the Revolution to effect large sales, and still in constant
usage in every State for individual as well as corporation purposes.
If it is permitted in my case, my lands here alone, with the mills,
etc., will pay everything, and leave me Monticello and a farm free. If
refused, I must sell everything here, perhaps considerably in Bedford,
move thither with my family, where I have not even a log hut to put my
head into, and whether ground for burial, will depend on the
depredations which, under the form of sales, shall have been committed
on my property. The question then with me was ultrum horum? But why
afflict you with these details? Indeed, I cannot tell, unless pains
are lessened by communication with a friend. The friendship which has
subsisted between us, now half a century, and the harmony of our
political principles and pursuits, have been sources of constant
happiness to me through that long period. And if I remove beyond the
reach of attentions to the University, or beyond the bourne of life
itself, as I soon must, it is a comfort to leave that institution
under your care, and an assurance that it will not be wanting. It has
also been a great solace to me, to believe that you are engaged in
vindicating to posterity the course we have pursued for preserving to
them, in all their purity, the blessings of self-government, which we
had assisted too in acquiring for them. If ever the earth has beheld
a system of administration conducted with a single and steadfast eye
to the general interest and happiness of those committed to it, one
which, protected by truth, can never know reproach, it is that to
which our lives have been devoted. To myself you have been a pillar of
support through life. Take care of me when dead, and be assured that I
shall leave with you my last affections.
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