← All research pathsTrespass
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.
Printed page 226 · PDF page 238
A boundary crossing is not necessarily burglary
Blackstone expressly distinguishes a civil trespass across invisible legal boundaries from the actual breaking required for burglary. Use the distinction to identify which historical action and which elements a comparison requires.
4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 226 (Oxford, William Strahan, Thomas Cadell, & Daniel Prince 7th ed. 1775).
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Original source record ↗Printed page 6 · PDF page 18
The private action alongside prosecution
The battery example separates punishment for disturbing the public peace from the injured person’s action of trespass for damages. The same page then turns to special damage from a public nuisance. The examples describe different grounds for private redress.
4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 6 (Oxford, William Strahan, Thomas Cadell, & Daniel Prince 7th ed. 1775).
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Original source record ↗Transcription page 181 · PDF page 185
General warrants and protected papers
Tucker discusses the constitutional protection of persons, houses, papers, and effects, and the English controversy over general warrants. This is a starting point for research into official intrusion. It does not itself establish the elements of a private trespass action. The displayed page number belongs to the modern transcription.
St. George Tucker, Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States; and of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Appended to Blackstone’s Commentaries 181 (LONANG Inst. electronic ed. 2013) (1803).
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