{"id":24088,"date":"2015-02-26T14:26:57","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T19:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=24088"},"modified":"2015-02-26T14:26:57","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T19:26:57","slug":"early-wisconsin-law-a-new-york-state-of-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2015\/02\/early-wisconsin-law-a-new-york-state-of-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"Early Wisconsin Law: A New York State of Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chancellor
Chancellor James Kent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is the third in a series of Schoone Fellowship Field Notes<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Legal cross-currents among states<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0Measuring the legal influence states have on each other is an intriguing but difficult task.\u00a0Some scholars have approached the task by measuring the number of times a state\u2019s supreme court decisions are cited in other states.\u00a0Typically they have used these numbers to rank each state and have left it there.\u00a0Little consideration has been given to regional variations in influence or changes in influence over time, or to the fact that judges rely on legal treatises as well as other courts\u2019 decisions.<\/p>\n

I have gone further, measuring case and treatise citations at 20-year intervals from 1800 to 1860. The book I am writing as part of the Schoone Fellowship will present these results in full.\u00a0New York, as expected, was the most influential state but, surprisingly, American courts also relied heavily on English cases heavily until the 1840s. The numbers present a striking picture of America\u2019s increasing reliance on its own law: (click on table to enlarge)<\/p>\n

\"Ranney<\/a><\/p>\n

The pattern is also true for Wisconsin, which did not start reporting cases until the 1830s.\u00a0American state court influence, and particularly that of New York courts, was on the rise, and reliance on English authority waned rapidly in both Wisconsin and the nation as a whole from 1835 to 1860 (click to enlarge):<\/p>\n

\"Ranney<\/a><\/p>\n

Why was New York the most influential state?<\/span><\/em>\u00a0\u00a0There are three main reasons:\u00a0commerce, Kent, and publishing.<\/p>\n

Commerce<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0About 1800, New York became the most populous state and New York City became the preeminent American port, and the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825 made New York the primary trading partner for much of the Midwest.\u00a0A litigation boom accompanied the state\u2019s commercial boom and made New York courts the cutting edge for advances in the law.<\/p>\n

Chancellor Kent<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0James Kent ensured New York\u2019s legal preeminence.\u00a0He served on New York\u2019s highest court (1800-15) and then as the state\u2019s chancellor, the highest equity judge (1815-1823).\u00a0Kent made the most of his opportunities to shape the law.\u00a0For example, in Livingston v. Van Ingen<\/em> (1812) he expanded the state\u2019s control over river and maritime trade and guided the development of the steamboat industry so as to give New York important advantages over its neighboring states.\u00a0In Methodist Episcopal Church v. Jaques<\/em> (1815), he modified New York married women\u2019s property rights in order to accommodate the needs of the new commercial system.\u00a0Kent was also the father of the modern system of published case reports, and he used New York\u2019s reports to disseminate his decisions nationwide. After retiring from the bench Kent wrote Commentaries on American Law<\/em> (1826), the first American law treatise, which became an indispensable resource for judges and lawyers in Wisconsin and throughout America.<\/p>\n

Publishing<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0New York\u2019s leading legal publishers, most notably Banks & Gould of New York City and Albany, maintained an unmatched national network of booksellers that gave jurists in all corners of the nation access to New York judges\u2019 decisions.<\/p>\n

New York\u2019s influence on Wisconsin<\/span><\/em>.\u00a0New York\u2019s legal influence on Wisconsin was compounded by the fact that many early Wisconsin settlers came from New York and that many Wisconsin lawyers had obtained their training there before moving west.\u00a0Wisconsin\u2019s two constitutional conventions (1846, 1847-48) borrowed freely from New York\u2019s recently enacted 1846 constitution, and the new state\u2019s first major reform laws, the married women\u2019s property rights of 1850 and the general banking law of 1852, also borrowed heavily New York experience.\u00a0Wisconsin also followed New York\u2019s codification movement, designed to simplify law and make it comprehensible and accessible to non-lawyers.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to sum up the New York legal state of mind in simple terms.\u00a0New York law balanced efforts to preserve English common law (led by Kent, a confirmed Anglophile) against the need to adapt that law to American commercial and social conditions (also heavily shaped by Kent) and impulses to move away from English law completely in some areas (for example, statutory codification and banking law).\u00a0New York and its jurists strove to promote individual enterprise and liberty in order to enable the state and the nation to grow in power and prosperity.\u00a0Early Wisconsin law strongly reflected that spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the third in a series of Schoone Fellowship Field Notes. Legal cross-currents among states.\u00a0Measuring the legal influence states have on each other is an intriguing but difficult task.\u00a0Some scholars have approached the task by measuring the number of times a state\u2019s supreme court decisions are cited in other states.\u00a0Typically they have used these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":188,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,122,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-history","category-public","category-wisconsin","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/188"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}