Introduction

The articles in this issue are drawn from the papers delivered at the conference “Ab Initio: Law in Early America,” held in Philadelphia on June 16–17, 2010—the first conference in nearly fifteen years to focus on law in early America. It was sponsored by the Penn Legal History Consortium, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the American Society for Legal History, the University of Michigan Law School, and the University of Minnesota Law School, under the direction of Sarah Barringer Gordon, Martha S. Jones, William J. Novak, Daniel K. Richter, Richard J. Ross, and Barbara Y. Welke. For two days, fifteen mostly younger scholars presented their research to a packed house, with formal comments by senior scholars and vigorous discussion with the audience. That earlier conference, “The Many Legalities of Early America,” which convened in Williamsburg in 1996, had illustrated the shift from what was once trumpeted as the “new” legal history to something that never acquired a name, perhaps because it was less self-conscious in its methodology. “Ab Initio” offered the opportunity to ask how the field has changed in the years since

Book Review: Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787. Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier; the First Amendment: The Legacy of George Mason. Edited by T. Daniel Shumate.

Book review: Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787. Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier. New York, N.Y.: Random House/Reader\u27s Digest Press. 1986. Pp. xvi, 331 ; The First Amendment: The Legacy of George Mason. Edited by T. Daniel Shumate. Fairfax, Va.: George Mason University Press. 1985. Pp. 201. Reviewed by: Bruce H Mann

Law, Legalism, and Community Before the American Revolution

The connections between law and community are difficult to identify, let alone explain. It may be best to begin by seeing how law and the ways people used it changed, and then attempt to relate those changes to the surrounding economy and society. One must, of course, be wary of finding what one looks for. Nonetheless, as with objects against a dark background, it is sometimes easier to see things when they move than when they remain still. To illustrate the interactive nature of legal change and community, I will draw on examples from Connecticut before the Revolution - not because I think Connecticut was representative or typical, but because I know something about it. As it happens, there were significant changes in the legal system from the end of the seventeenth century to the eve of the Revolution, both in the ways people used the legal system and in its internal characteristics. There were also perceptible changes in the economy and society of the colony during the same period. The juxtaposition may have been coincidental, but I think not. The changes were linked, however loosely, by the growth of a legalist paradigm, in which the formal legal system supplanted ways of dealing that were rooted in communities and became the standards for all forms of disputing

Book Review: Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787. Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier; the First Amendment: The Legacy of George Mason. Edited by T. Daniel Shumate.

Book review: Decision in Philadelphia: The Constitutional Convention of 1787. Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier. New York, N.Y.: Random House/Reader\u27s Digest Press. 1986. Pp. xvi, 331 ; The First Amendment: The Legacy of George Mason. Edited by T. Daniel Shumate. Fairfax, Va.: George Mason University Press. 1985. Pp. 201. Reviewed by: Bruce H Mann