Jurist And Scholar

Training.

James Kent's early years illustrated the development of the elite bar in post-Revolutionary New York that also featured Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and Edward Livingston. Kent's father, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was an attorney in Dutchess County, New York, where James was born in 1763. The future jurist entered Yale College in 1777 but did not graduate until 1781 because the Revolutionary War periodically interrupted his studies. During one suspension of classes he read William Blackstone's Commentaries on the haws of England (1765—1769); he later recalled that the classic work "inspired me, at the age of fifteen with awe, and I fondly determined to be a lawyer." After preparing for three years in the Poughkeepsie office of Attorney General Egbert Benson, he was admitted to the New York bar in 1785 and joined a partnership with Gilbert Livingston. Eight years later he moved to...