Title: A jurisprudence of power : Victorian Empire and the rule of law /
Authors: Kostal, R. W.
Publisher: Oxford University Press,
Year: 2005
Subjects: Rule of law Great Britain History.; Martial law Jamaica History
Abstract: "A Jurisprudence of Power concerns the brutal suppression under martial law of the Jamaica uprising of 1865, and the explosive debate and litigation these events spawned in England. The book explores the centrality of legal ideas and institutions in English politics, and the political ideas that give rise to great questions of English law." "It documents how the world's most powerful and articulate political elite struggled with fundamental questions about law, morality, and power. Can a constitutional state rule a sprawling empire without breaking faith with the rule of law? Can it contend with the violent resistance of subjugated peoples without corrupting the integrity of its legal and political ideas?" "The book addresses these questions as it reconstructs the most prolonged and important conflict over martial law and the rule of law in the history of England during the nineteenth century."--Jacket.
Contents: "The country of law" : reconstructing the Morant Bay uprising in England -- "The blood that testifies" : the Jamaica controversy in Jamaica -- The drawing-room men : the Jamaica controversy in 1866 -- The tenets of terror : reinventing the law of martial law -- Marshalling martial law : litigating the Jamaica controversy -- "The alphabet of our liberty" : Lord Chief Justice Cockburn in the Old Bailey -- "The most law-loving people in the world" : the denouement of the Jamaica litigation -- Phillips v. Eyre and the problem of martial law -- A jurisprudence of power : Victorian Empire and the rule of law.