(The Making of the Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 ...)
The Making of the Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 includes over 20,000 analytical, theoretical and practical works on American and British Law. It includes the writings of major legal theorists, including Sir Edward Coke, Sir William Blackstone, James Fitzjames Stephen, Frederic William Maitland, John Marshall, Joseph Story, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Roscoe Pound, among others. Legal Treatises includes casebooks, local practice manuals, form books, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, speeches and other works of the most influential writers of their time. It is of great value to researchers of domestic and international law, government and politics, legal history, business and economics, criminology and much more. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ Harvard Law School Library ocm31398538 Attributed to: Benjamin Austin. Cf. NUC pre-'56. Imprint date from NUC pre-'56. Boston : Printed by Joshua Belcher, 1814?. 63 p. ; 25 cm.
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Benjamin Austin was born on November 18, 1752 in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was the son of Elizabeth (Waldo) Austin and Benjamin Austin, merchant and member of the Council of Massachusetts. The Waldos were mostly Tories; the Austins belonged to a small group of mercantile families in eastern Massachusetts who became ardent disciples of Samuel Adams.
It is known that Austin attended Boston Latin School but did not go on to college.
During the war Benjamin Austin had written patriotic orations in the Boston press, but he gained his reputation in 1786 by a series of Observations on the Pernicious Practice of the Law signed "Honestus. " In their stead he proposed (1) that petty cases be decided by referees, (2) the adoption of a plain and simple law code that any educated citizen could understand, (3) that parties be required to do their own pleading in civil cases, or be represented by a friend who must declare on oath that he is receiving no fee, (4) that the Commonwealth appoint an advocate general to appear on behalf of all persons indicted by the attorney-general.
The last proposal foreshadows the public defender of modern law reformers; and Austin's suggestions were not unfitted for the needs of the times, but the lawyers of course assailed him, and accused him of fomenting Shays' Rebellion, which broke out shortly after. The injustice of this charge turned Austin's zeal to bitterness, and his courage to contentiousness.
He succeeded Sam Adams as favorite of the Boston mob, and was elected to the state Senate in 1787, and from 1789 to 1794. J. Q. Adams describes his flooding the town meeting with 700 men "who looked as if they had been collected from all the Jails on the continent, with Benjamin Austin like another Jack Cade at their head. "
By 1790 he was opposing Washington's administration, and his local faction for which he accepted the name Democratic was one of the urban groups whose adherence Jefferson accepted with some misgivings. "Aristocracy, " "monarchical influence, " "the Essex Junto, " "the British Treaty, " were phrases that Austin used like bludgeons. "Lank Honestus with his lanthorn jaws" was a terror to the Federalists and the target of their satire, for which his violent, demagogic manner of speaking, and his business of rope-making rendered him singularly vulnerable.
His probity, however, was unquestioned, and throughout the period of Federalist ascendancy he occupied positions of trust such as Overseer of the Poor, and manager of the Harvard College lotteries. He was a leader in the Boston Constitutional Club, one of the "self-created societies" of 1794 that interfered with the authorities, promoted riots, frightened property-holders, and quickly brought conservative reaction. He was defeated for the state Senate in 1795, and although returned on April 4, 1796, he definitely lost political control of Boston three weeks later at a town meeting on Jay's treaty, and was not again reelected.
"Every attempt to restore the liberties of mankind, or to check the progress of arbitrary power, is now styled Jacobinism, " wrote Austin in 1797. He kept Republican principles before the people in frequent newspaper articles, the republication of which in 1803 was followed shortly by a presidential appointment as commissioner of loans.
His caustic tongue on one occasion got him a beating by a Federalist editor, and on another had tragic consequences. Having accused T. O. Selfridge, a Federalist lawyer, of barratry, Austin failed to give satisfaction when the charge was proved false. Selfridge posted him in the Boston Gazette as a coward, liar, and scoundrel. That afternoon, August 4, 1806, Austin's son Charles, a Harvard student, assaulted Selfridge with a hickory stick and was shot dead. The trial of Selfridge for manslaughter developed into a contest of strength between Federalists and Republicans; his acquittal by a Federalist jury, following a charge by Justice Parker, added bitterness to the party conflict.
(The Making of the Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 ...)
Although regarded as a dangerous radical, Austin was essentially a conservative always opposing local improvements and changes. He liked the political vintage of 1775 too well to accept the new wine of Federalism.
Austin had a violent, demagogic manner of speaking, and a caustic tongue.
Benjamin Austin married Jane Ivers in 1785. They had one son whose name was Charles.
