Colonial and Revolutionary Origins of the American Law of Treason
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3129394 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bradley Chapin (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1960 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 3 |
| Publication date | 1960-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The William and Mary Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-5597 • E-ISSN: 1933-7698 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1943476 |
| OpenAlex | W2321817825 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
T THE constitutional definition of treason against the United States, a substantial example of eighteenth-century liberal statesmanship,1 is cast in the words of a fourteenth-century English statute. By what process did the medieval become modern, the monarchical, republican? The roots of our substantive law are in a statute enacted in the twentyfifth year of the reign of Edward II.2 Of the seven heads of action made treasonable by that ancient law, the more significant were compassing or imagining the death of the king, adhering to the king's enemies, giving them aid and comfort, and levying war against the king. Through two subsequent centuries Parliament protected the sovereign by modifying the statute until the urgent pressures of the Reformation and the later crises of the seventeenth century demanded a more flexible weapon. Then, facile judges construed the acts of speaking or writing words tending to subvert government and of conspiracy to levy war as acts compassing the king's death; further, resistance to the execution of a general law came by construction to be a levying of war.3 The Glorious Revolution, with its constitutional theories of legal resistance, brought no change to this sovereign-protecting law.4 In substance what had been treason to Judge
Colonialism · Political science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law
| Citations per year | 0.09 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1994 - 2022 (29) |
| Highly cited | No |