Legal Tradition.

The commonly expressed idea that America is "a nation of laws and not of men" traces its roots to the earliest of days of the nation, when the preservation of liberty was the foremost concern. The Founding Fathers understood that a people well educated in the law would have the tools necessary to maintain their hard-won rights. Moreover, in a time when political leaders struggled to join thirteen distinct jurisdictions into one coherent nation, the law was an important force unifying the former colonies. The system of justice that most people were familiar with was a haphazard adaptation of ancient common law principles which were created in an English political environment whose chief organizing idea was the largely unfettered power of the monarch. The development of a truly American system of law and justice was therefore essential if this great...