The Jurisprudence of Transcendentalism

Abstract

This article begins by sketching the evolving legal fabric of Antebellum America, stressing the way law and legal institutions came to play larger and more trusted roles in sociopolitical life during that period. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and the other Transcendentalists reacted negatively to this societal “legalization,” and as the second part of this article indicates, their jurisprudence was a largely negative critique of law and legal institutions. The third part of the article explores the part this jurisprudence played in the Transcendentalists’ critique of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. In conclusion, the article maintains that even in the present the jurisprudence of the Transcendentalism is a valuable demystification of man-made law and a warning against an unreflective belief in law and the rule of law.

Keywords: Transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, higher law, civil disobedience, Fugitive Slave Law of 1850