For Students

This introductory analysis of the origin and early development of the English common law provides an excellent grounding for the beginning student as well as the experienced scholar of legal history. Arthur R. Hogue (1906–1986) was Professor of History at Indiana University.

The Pacificus-Helvidius Debates of 1793–1794 matched Hamilton and Madison in the first chapter of an enduring discussion about the proper roles of executive and legislative branches in the conduct of American foreign policy. Ignited by President Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation of 1793, which annulled the eleventh article of America’s treaty with France of 1778, the debate addressed whether Washington had the…

William Penn (1644–1718) played a crucial role in the articulation of religious liberty as a philosophical and political value during the second half of the seventeenth century and as a core element of the classical liberal tradition in general. Penn was not only one of the most vocal spokesmen for liberty of conscience in Restoration England, but he also oversaw…

This volume presents a collection of thirty-four essays and shorter works by James M. Buchanan that represent the brilliance of his founding work on public-choice theory. The work of James M. Buchanan is perhaps most often associated with his helping to found public-choice theory. Buchanan’s book-length works such as The Calculus of Consent or The Reason of Rules (Volumes 3…

Henry Home, Lord Kames, was the complete “Enlightenment man,” concerned with the full spectrum of human knowledge and its social use. However, as a lawyer and, after 1752, as a judge on the Court of Session in Edinburgh, he made many of his most distinctive contributions through his works on the nature of law and legal development. Principles of Equity,…

Born in 1694, Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui helped transform the modern tradition of natural law and convey it to new generations. Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui (1694–1748) was a Swiss jurist. Petter Korkman is a Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies and is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Philosophy at the Academy of Finland.