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70 Colum. L. Rev. 1475 (1970)
Blackstone's Commentaries with Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States and of the Commonwealth of Virginia

handle is hein.journals/clr70 and id is 1497 raw text is: BOOKS
BLACKSTONE'S COMM14ENTARIES WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE
TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE FEDERAL GOVERN-
MENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF THE COMMONWEALTH
OF VIRGINIA. 5 volumes. St. George Tucker. S. Hackensack, New Jersey:
Rothman Reprint Co., 1969. $135.00.
INTRODUCTION
American legal commentators of the antebellum period bear a distinctly
conservative stamp. At their best they were conservative in the manner of
Story, imposing wise restraint on the process of change ;I at their worst they
could be no more than apologists for the status quo, justifying abuse and
privilege in the name of order.2 This pervasive conservative tone is under-
standable, for the task of the commentator is often synthesis and consolidation.
That function was even more important in the nation's childhood. The dearth
of ordered materials made practice difficult and put a premium on the elemen-
tary tasks of order. Perhaps because he was a confirmed Jeffersonian, writing
at the zenith of Jeffersonianism, St. George Tucker stands out as a notable
exception to the rule. His work exudes a reformist and libertarian vitality
unthinkable in a Kent, a Story, or a Dane.
In 1803, Tucker, a judge on the Supreme Court of Errors of Virginia
and a Professor of Law at William and Mary College, published an annotated
edition of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. In addition
to the complete text of Blackstone, the five volumes contain eight hundred
pages of appendices consisting of essays by Tucker on a wide variety of legal
and political subjects.3 Tucker also interspersed more than one thousand foot-
1. Z. SwIFT, A SYSTEM OF THE LAW OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT (1795-96).
Story's tentative, equivocal attitude towards codification was a good example of this
healthy conservative tendency. No one man could have done more than Story with his
many treatises to bring order to American legal materials. Yet, he did not embrace
codification, knowing that it would not prove a panacea and that the common law had
much to offer as a method. For a short, lucid description of the codification dispute, see
P. MILLER, THE LIFE OF THE MIND IN AMERIcA 239-265 (1965).
2. See, e.g., James Kent's apology for slavery in his COMMENTARIES. He characterized
the laws of the southern states as extremely severe, but said of them: They are, doubt-
less, as just and as mild as is deemed, by those governments, to be compatible with the
public safety, or with the existence and preservation of that species of property [i.e.,
slaves] . .. . He further absolved the contemporary generation of blame for slavery and
implicitly approved the South's policies of completely insulating slaves from any poten-
tially incendiary material. 2 J. KENT, COMMENTARIES *252-54 (1846 ed.). See generally,
J. HORTON, JAMES KENT, A STUDY IN CONSERVATISM 1763-1847 (1939).
3. Many of the essays are discussed infra. An enumeration of representative titles of
the Appendix Notes, as Tucker called them, follows: Of Sovereignty and Legislature;
Of the Several Forms of Government; Of the Constitution of Virginia; Of the Constitu-
tion of the United States; Of the Unwritten, or Common Law of England ... ; Of the
LEX SCRIPTA or written law of Virginia; Of the Right of Conscience and of Freedom
of Speech and of the Press; Of the State of Slavery in Virginia; Abstract of Bill for the

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