Research Catalog

Of "good laws" and "good men" : law and society in the Delaware Valley, 1680-1710

Title
Of "good laws" and "good men" : law and society in the Delaware Valley, 1680-1710 / William M. Offutt, Jr.
Author
Offutt, William M. (William McEnery), 1956-
Publication
Urbana : University of Illinois Press, ©1995.

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Details

Description
xi, 340 pages; 24 cm
Summary
"Of "Good Laws" and "Good Men" reveals how a Quaker minority in the Delaware Valley used the law to its own advantage yet maintained the legitimacy of its rule."--BOOK JACKET. "William Offutt, Jr., places legal processes at the center of this region's social history. The new societies established there in the late 1600s did not rely on religious conformity, culture, or a simple majority to develop successfully, Offutt maintains. Rather, they succeeded because of the implementation of reforms that gave the expanding population faith in the legitimacy of legal processes introduced by a Quaker elite."--BOOK JACKET. "Offutt's painstaking investigation of the records of more than 2,000 civil and 1,100 criminal cases in four county courts over a thirty-year period shows that Quakers - the "Good Men"--were disproportionately represented as justices, officers, and jurors in this system of "Good Laws" they had established, and that they fared better than did the rest of the population in dealing with it."--Jacket.
Subject
  • Society of Friends
  • Geschichte 1680-1710
  • Quakers > Legal status, laws, etc. > History. > Delaware River Valley (N.Y.-Del. and N.J.)
  • Quakers > Legal status, laws, etc
  • Kriminalität
  • Quakers
  • Wetgeving
  • Maatschappij
  • United States > Delaware River Valley
  • Delaware Valley
Genre/Form
History.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-323) and index.
Contents
1. The Demography of the Law -- 2. Litigants and Their Causes -- 3. Strategies and Outcomes in Civil Litigation -- 4. Quaker Dispute Processing -- 5. Accused Deviants and Their Offenses -- 6. Dispositions of the Deviant -- Conclusion: A People of Process.
ISBN
  • 0252021525
  • 9780252021527
LCCN
94037980
OCLC
  • ocm31289924
  • 31289924
  • SCSB-2060021
Owning Institutions
Princeton University Library