Law Commons^™

The Discourse Of Law In Time Of War: Politics And Professionalism During The Civil War And Reconstruction, Norman W. Spaulding

William & Mary Law Review

This Article assesses the role of law and lawyering in time of war by examining how lawyers responded to and were affected by the Civil War and Reconstruction. Although the modern legal profession has its roots in the same time period (legal formalism, education in law schools rather than apprenticeships, Socratic instruction, bar associations, large firm practice, and a distinct brand of constitutional conservatism all emerge in the 1870s), historians of the legal profession have largely ignored the relationship between professional organization and lawyers' experience of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Before the war period, many elite lawyers were committed …