by Stephen M. Klugewicz
“Beware the Ides of March!” Thus the soothsayer warned Emperor Julius Caesar on the 15th of March, 44 B.C. On that day, Caesar, who had overturned the Roman republic and made himself a tyrant, was assassinated by a group of Senators, including his friend, Brutus. In the eponymous play by William Shakespeare, the Senators begin to stab Caesar, who tries to resist the assault until he sees Brutus also wielding a knife against him. “Et tu, Brute?” Caesar utters in disbelief before collapsing. [Read more...]
The Blackstonian Causes of the American Revolution
Sir William Blackstone
by Richard Samuelson
William Blackstone (1723-1780), the great English jurist, did not cause the American Revolution. Had he not published his Commentaries on the Laws of England in the late 1760s, the American Revolution would have taken place. Blackstone did, however, represent certain trends in the law and in British society that, when combined with the evolving colonial situation of the 1760s led to American independence. Unrest in the empire took place at the junction of politics, culture, and ideas as Anglo-American nationalism, the transition to constitutional positivism, and the desire to reform colonial administration in the 1760s rendered the empire unworkable. After the Seven Years War, Blackstone’s doctrines made it difficult to finesse the tension that had always existed between the liberties of the colonial periphery and governance from the imperial center. [1] [Read more...]