Follow the sources
Begin with a legal interest, then follow selected passages to their sources. These paths connect related ideas while preserving differences in period, jurisdiction, and form of action.
Begin with trust, confidence, and the protection of private conversation. These passages supply distinct historical starting points; the collection does not yet contain a dedicated series of breach-of-confidence decisions.
Explore 3 passages →Trace boundary crossing, personal injury, and official entry while preserving the differences between civil actions and criminal offenses. Blackstone’s dedicated volume on private wrongs is not yet in this collection.
Explore 3 passages →Read the historical account of possession, use, and habitation together with the limits on government interference. The passages introduce the interests before turning to the remedies protecting them.
Explore 3 passages →Follow the relationship between an injury, access to a tribunal, and the form of redress. These texts also identify situations in which historical law directed grievances beyond an ordinary court action.
Explore 3 passages →Study precedent, judicial independence, and constitutional interpretation as separate aspects of adjudication. Story’s later American account adds a different institutional setting to Blackstone’s account of English law.
Explore 3 passages →Read historical sources cited by Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, and Robert Bork, with links to their opinions and the checked passages. Notes distinguish the historical text, the writer’s use of it, and later case history.
Explore 10 passages →