Law Commons^™

American Independence And The Law: A Study Of Post-Revolutionary South Carolina Legislation, James W. Ely, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Joseph Brevard, a South Carolina judge, observed in 1814 that "the laws of a country form the most instructive portion of its history." Certainly the successive printed collections of state statutes are among the most reliable and readily available sources for early American legal history. While statutes on their face do not reveal the extent to which they proved effective, the fact remains that to a unique degree statute law, as the product of the legislative process, mirrors the considered values and ideals of a society. Yet the legal history of South Carolina, and indeed that of most southern states, …