biography
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1763–1847)
|
| biography:
| Legal scholar, born in Southeast, New York, USA. A staunch Federalist, he was chosen by John Jay and Alexander Hamilton to be Columbia College's first professor of law (1793–8). In 1798 he was appointed to the New York State Supreme Court and rose to become its chief justice (1804–14). He became chancellor of the New York State court of chancery (1814–23) where his decisions and written opinions often implemented equity jurisdiction, dubbing him ‘the American Blackstone’. His compulsory retirement from the bench at age 60 led to his return to Columbia, where he wrote America's first legal classic, Commentaries on American Law (4 vols, 1826–30), which provided the first systematic, clear approach to Anglo-American law. |
|
|
