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Sir William Blackstone, ( July 10 , 1723 – February 14 , 1780 ) was an English Jurist and professor who produced the historical treatise on the Common Law called '' Commentaries On The Laws Of England '', first published in four volumes over 1765–1769. It had an extraordinary success, said to have brought the author £14,000, and still remains the best general history of the subject. Blackstone was the posthumous son of a silk mercer in London, and received his education at Charterhouse School and at Pembroke College , Oxford . In 1743 he became a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford , and he was Called To The Bar as a Barrister in 1746. After practising in the courts of Westminster for several years, he returned to Oxford in 1758 when another lawyer, Charles Viner , established an endowed chair at the university for a lecturer in law. Viner's endowed chair became known as the Vinerian Professorship , and it continues to exist to the present day. Blackstone lived at Castle Priory in Wallingford . In addition to the ''Commentaries'', Blackstone published treatises on '' Magna Carta '' and the '' Charter Of The Forests ''. In 1761 he won election as a Member Of Parliament for Hindon and "took the silk" as a King's Counsel . Blackstone and his work occasionally appear in Literature . For example, Blackstone receives mention in Herman Melville 's '' Moby-Dick ''. A bust of Blackstone is a typical ornament of a lawyer's office in early Perry Mason novels, and in Anatomy Of A Murder . Blackstone wrote his books on common law shortly before the United States Constitution was written. The terms and phrases used by the framers often derived from Blackstone's works. US courts frequently quote Blackstone's '' Commentaries On The Laws Of England '' as the definitive pre- Revolutionary War source of common law; in particular, the United States Supreme Court quotes from Blackstone's work whenever they wish to engage in historical discussion that goes back that far, or further (for example, when discussing the intent of the Framers Of The Constitution ). US and other common law courts mention with strong approval ''Blackstone's formulation'' also known as ''Blackstone's ratio'' popularly stated as "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" -- although he did not first express the principle. Blackstone was not a man of original mind, nor was he a profound lawyer; but he wrote an excellent style, clear and dignified, which brings his great work within the category of general literature. He had also a turn for neat and polished verse, of which he gave proof in ''The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse''. BLACKSTONE AND ANTI-CATHOLICISM William Blackstone summarized his attitude toward Roman Catholics in his '' Commentaries On The Laws Of England '' : :As to papists, what has been said of the Protestant dissenters would hold equally strong for a general toleration of them; provided their separation was founded only upon difference of opinion in religion, and their principles did not also extend to a subversion of the civil government. If once they could be brought to renounce the supremacy of the pope, they might quietly enjoy their seven sacraments, their purgatory, and auricular confession; their worship of reliques and images; nay even their transubstantiation. But while they acknowledge a foreign power, superior to the sovereignty of the kingdom, they cannot complain if the laws of that kingdom will not treat them upon the footing of good subjects.
Blackstone was defending a large body of British laws, collectively known as the Penal Law s, which imposed various civil disabilities and legal penalties on Recusant Catholics. These laws were gradually repealed over the course of the Nineteenth Century with laws such as the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829; however, the law of Succession To The British Throne continues to bar Catholics, and anyone married to a " Papist ", from the line of succession. The gravamen of Blackstone's charge, then, is that Catholics constitute an '' Imperium In Imperio '', a sort of a Fifth Column of persons who owe a greater allegiance to the Pope than they do to the civil government. REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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