The Law's Conscience: Equitable Constitutionalism in America (Thornton H. Brooks Series in American Law and Society) - Softcover

Hoffer, Peter Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 080784294X ISBN 13: 9780807842942

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 1990

Synopsis

The Law’s Conscience is a history of equity in Anglo-American juris-prudence from the inception of the chancellor’s court in medieval England to the recent civil rights and affirmative action decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Peter Hoffer argues that equity embodies a way of looking at law, including constitutions, based on ideas of mutual fairness, public trusteeship, and equal protection. His central theme is the tension between the ideal of equity and the actual availability of equitable remedies.

Hoffer examines this tension in the trusteeship constitutionalism of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson; the incorporation of equity in the first American constitutions; the antebellum controversy over slavery; the fortunes of the Freedmen’s Bureau after the Civil War; the emergence of the doctrine of “Balance of Equity” in twentieth-century public-interest law; and the desegregation and reverse discrimination cases of the past thirty-five years. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was the most important equity suit in American history, and Hoffer begins and ends his book with a new interpretation of its lessons.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Charles Hoffer is coauthor of Impeachment in America, 1635–1805.

From the Back Cover

'The Law's Conscience' is a history of equity in Anglo-American jurisprudence from the inception of the chancellor's court in medieval England to the most recent civil rights and affirmative action decisions of the United States Supreme Court.

Edition details

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1990
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080784294X
• ISBN 13: 9780807842942
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 316