James Kent (July 31, 1763 – December 12, 1847), sometimes called the "American Blackstone", was an American jurist, New York legislator and legal scholar. His ''
Commentaries on American Law'' (based on lectures first delivered at
Columbia College in 1794, and further lectures in the 1820s) became the formative American law book in the antebellum era (published in 14 editions before 1896) and also helped establish the tradition of law reporting in America.
[Langbein, John H.]
Chancellor Kent and the History of Legal Literature
(1993). Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 549. p. 548
Early life
Kent was born in what was then the town of Fredericksburg (the present-day towns of
Patterson,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
,
Carmel
Carmel may refer to:
* Carmel (biblical settlement), an ancient Israelite town in Judea
* Mount Carmel, a coastal mountain range in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea
* Carmelites, a Roman Catholic mendicant religious order
Carmel may also ...
,
Southeast and
Pawling) in
Dutchess County, New York
Dutchess County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 295,911. The county seat is the city of Poughkeepsie. The county was created in 1683, one of New York's first twelve counties, and later orga ...
. His father, Moss Kent, was a lawyer in that county, as well as the first
Surrogate
A surrogate is a substitute or deputy for another person in a specific role and may refer to:
Relationships
* Surrogacy, an arrangement where a woman agrees to carry and give birth to a child for another person who will become its parent at bi ...
of nearby
Rensselaer County, New York
Rensselaer County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 161,130. Its county seat is Troy. The county is named in honor of the family of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the original Dutch owner of the l ...
. Despite interruptions caused by the American Revolutionary War, Kent graduated from
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
in 1781, having helped establish the
Phi Beta Kappa Society
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ar ...
there in 1780. Returning to New York, Kent read law under
Egbert Benson (then the state Attorney General and later a state judge).
Early career
Admitted to the New York bar in January 1785, Kent began practicing law in
Poughkeepsie, New York
Poughkeepsie ( ), officially the City of Poughkeepsie, separate from the Town of Poughkeepsie around it) is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsi ...
and neighboring areas. Voters in Dutchess County elected him in 1791 and 1792-93 as their representative in the
New York State Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits.
The Assem ...
. However, he had married and supporting his growing family based on his scholarship and nearly rural legal practice proved difficult.
In 1793, Kent moved his family to New York City, where he had been appointed the first professor of law in
Columbia College, where he would teach (part-time) for the next five years. He was soon appointed a
master in chancery for the city.
Kent again served in the Assembly in 1796-97. In 1797, he was appointed
Recorder of New York City
The Recorder of New York City was a municipal officer of New York City from 1683 until 1907. He was at times a judge of the Court of General Sessions, the Court of Special Sessions, and the New York Court of Common Pleas; Vice-President of the Boar ...
and in 1798, a justice of the
New York Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...
, in 1804 Chief Justice, and in 1814
Chancellor of New York The New York Court of Chancery was the highest court in the State of New York from 1701 to 1847.
History
The New York Court of Chancery was established during the British colonial administration on August 28, 1701, with the colonial governor actin ...
. Kent was also elected a member of the
American Antiquarian Society
The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...
in 1814. In 1821 he was a member of the
New York State Constitutional Convention where he unsuccessfully opposed the raising of the property qualification for
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
voters. Two years later, Chancellor Kent reached the constitutional age limit and retired from his office, but was re-elected to his former chair.
He was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1829.
He lived in retirement in
Summit, New Jersey
Summit is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The city is located on a ridge in northern- central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. At the 2010 United Sta ...
between 1837 and 1847 in a simple four-roomed cottage (the original cottage no longer stands and has been incorporated into a large mansion at 50 Kent Place) which he referred to as 'my Summit Lodge', a name that has been offered as the derivation for the city's name.
Work
Kent has been long remembered for his ''
Commentaries on American Law'' (four volumes, published 1826-1830), highly respected in England and America. The ''Commentaries'' treated state, federal and international law, and the law of personal rights and of property, and went through six editions in Kent's lifetime.
Kent rendered his most essential service to American jurisprudence while serving as chancellor. Chancery, or
equity
Equity may refer to:
Finance, accounting and ownership
* Equity (finance), ownership of assets that have liabilities attached to them
** Stock, equity based on original contributions of cash or other value to a business
** Home equity, the dif ...
law, had been very unpopular during the colonial period, and had received little development, and no decisions had been published. His judgments of this class cover a wide range of topics, and are so thoroughly considered and developed as unquestionably to form the basis of American equity jurisprudence.
As chancellor, Kent inspired the development of modern American
discovery
Discovery may refer to:
* Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown
* Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown
* Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence
Discovery, The Discovery ...
by allowing masters to actively examine witnesses during
depositions (rather than following the old English procedure of merely reading static interrogatories), and he allowed parties and counsel to be present for depositions. These innovations led to the modern deposition by oral examination.
Depositions are still one of the most unique and distinctive aspects of civil procedure in the United States and Canada.
Family
Kent married Elizabeth Bailey, and they had four children: Elizabeth (died in infancy), Elizabeth, Mary, and
William Kent
William Kent (c. 1685 – 12 April 1748) was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but ...
(1802–1861) who was a
circuit judge and ran for
Lieutenant Governor of New York
The lieutenant governor of New York is a constitutional office in the executive branch of the Government of the State of New York. It is the second highest-ranking official in state government. The lieutenant governor is elected on a ticket wit ...
with
Washington Hunt
Washington Hunt (August 5, 1811 – February 2, 1867) was an American lawyer and politician.
Life and career
Hunt was born in Windham, New York. He moved to Lockport, New York in 1828 to study law, was admitted to the bar in 1834, and opene ...
in 1852.
His brother
Moss Kent
Moss Kent (April 3, 1766 – May 30, 1838) was a United States Representative from New York. Born in Kent's Parish, part of Croton-on-Hudson, New York, he completed preparatory studies, studied law, was admitted to the bar, and practiced there. ...
was a
Congressman
A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...
.
Monuments and memorials
*
Kent County, Michigan
Kent County is located in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 Census, the county had a population of 657,974, making it the fourth most populous county in Michigan, and the largest outside of the Detroit area. Its county seat is Grand ...
and
Kent City, Michigan
Kent City is a village in Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 1,262 at the 2020 census. The village is located within Tyrone Township.
The village is part of the Grand Rapids metropolitan area and is located about no ...
are named in his honor, probably because he represented
Michigan Territory
The Territory of Michigan was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from June 30, 1805, until January 26, 1837, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Michigan. Detroit w ...
in its dispute with
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
over the
Toledo Strip
The Toledo War (1835–36), also known as the Michigan–Ohio War or the Ohio–Michigan War, was an almost bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan over what is now known as the Toledo S ...
.
*
Chicago-Kent College of Law is named in his honor.
* The Chancellor Kent
Professorship at
Columbia Law School is named after him, as is
Kent Hall
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan ...
, which was built for the law school, but which now contains the
C.V. Starr East Asian Library
The C.V. Starr East Asian Library is a library at Columbia University, holding collections for the study of East Asia in the United States. It is one of the largest East Asian libraries in North America, consisting of over one million volumes of C ...
. Students who have high honors status (generally those who are in the top two to eight percent of the class) during any one of their years at Columbia Law School are called James Kent Scholars in honor of James Kent's status as Columbia's first professor of law.
[Columbia Law School]
''Grading and Honors at Columbia Law School''
/ref>
* The Chancellor Kent Professorship at Yale Law School
Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...
is also named after him.
* Kent Place School
The Kent Place School is a girls independent college-preparatory day school (with a coeducational nursery and pre-kindergarten) serving students in preschool through twelfth grade in Summit, Union County, New Jersey, United States.
Kent Place ...
, an independent all-girls school in New Jersey, is located where his summer house was.
* James Kent's original "Summit Lodge" is now incorporated into a large mansion at 50 Kent Place Boulevard, Summit, NJ. Most of the original architecture including the kitchen and long room still exist today.
* Bronze statues of Chancellor Kent and Solon
Solon ( grc-gre, Σόλων; BC) was an Athenian statesman, constitutional lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in Archaic Athens.Aristotle ''Politics'' ...
(the Athenian lawmaker whose reforms laid the foundations for democracy) represent law on the balustrade of the galleries of the Main Reading Room in the Thomas Jefferson Building
The Thomas Jefferson Building is the oldest of the four United States Library of Congress buildings. Built between 1890 and 1897, it was originally known as the Library of Congress Building. It is now named for the 3rd U.S. president Thomas Jeffe ...
of the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
on Capitol Hill
Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...
in Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
These statues are among sixteen representing men whose works have shaped human development and civilization.
* In 1900, Kent was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans
The Hall of Fame for Great Americans is an outdoor sculpture gallery located on the grounds of Bronx Community College (BCC) in the Bronx, New York City. It is the first such hall of fame in the United States. Built in 1901 as part of the Uni ...
with a bust sculpted by Edmond Thomas Quinn
Edmond Thomas Quinn (1868 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – September 1929 in New York City) was an American sculptor and painter. He is best known for his bronze statue of ''Edwin Booth as Hamlet'', which stands at the center of Gramercy Park in ...
.
References
Notes
Sources
*
Political Graveyard
Google Books
''The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1849'' (his obit on page 326, Charles C. Little & James Brown, Boston, 1848)
Further reading
*Duer, John, ''Discourse on the Life, Character, and Public Services of James Kent,'' New York, 1848.
*Horton, John Theodore. ''James Kent: A Study in Conservatism, 1763-1847.'' New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1939.
External links
Finding aid to Kent family papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
* ttp://www.constitution.org/jk/jk_000.htm James Kent: Commentaries on American Law*
James Kent Papers, Library of Congress
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kent, James
1763 births
1847 deaths
People from Dutchess County, New York
American legal writers
Members of the New York State Assembly
Chancellors of New York (state)
Politicians from Summit, New Jersey
Yale College alumni
New York City Recorders
New York Supreme Court Justices
Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees
People from Rensselaer County, New York
Members of the American Antiquarian Society
Columbia University faculty