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3 unusual facts about Commentaries on the Laws of England


Commentaries on the Laws of England

Ralph Thomas in Notes & Queries, 4th Series, II August 8, 1868 gave the following list of the abridgements of Blackstone’s Commentaries.

Boorstin, Daniel J., The Mysterious Science of the Law : An Essay on Blackstone's Commentaries, (Univ. Chicago, 1996).

The book was famously used as the key in Benedict Arnold's book cipher, which he used to communicate secretly with his conspirator John André during their plot to betray the Continental Army during the American Revolution.


Prior restraint

In William Blackstone's Commentaries “Freedom of the Press” is defined as the right to be free from prior restraints.

William Findley

At one point, Constitutional Convention delegate James Wilson and Pennsylvania Chief Justice Thomas McKean disputed one of Findley's statements about jury trials in Sweden; Findley returned two days later with William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England and demonstrated that his reference had been correct.


see also