History of Law

The Code of Ur-Nammu

The Code of Ur-Nammu, from the Sumerian city of Ur, is the oldest law code known today. Many offenses are punished by fines in silver.

The Code of Hammurabi

King Hammurabi of Babylon has about 282 laws carved on a stone stele, including the rule of an eye for an eye. The stele, found at Susa in 1901–1902, is now in the Louvre.

The Code of HammurabiHammurabi

The Law of Moses

The Bible tells how God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the Law at Mount Sinai. The Law joined worship with justice and care for the poor, the widow and the stranger, and it deeply shaped later Jewish, Christian and Western law. Historians debate its dates.

The BibleMoses

Draco writes down the laws of Athens

Draco gives Athens its first written laws. They were so harsh that draconian still means very severe.

The Athenian ConstitutionLives of the Noble Grecians and Romans

Solon's reforms

Solon, chosen to lead Athens, cancels debts that had enslaved poor Athenians, repeals most of Draco's laws and lets citizens appeal to a court of the people.

The Athenian ConstitutionLives of the Noble Grecians and RomansSolon

The Twelve Tables

Roman commoners demand written laws, and a board of ten men produces the Twelve Tables, set up in the Forum. Cicero recalled that Roman boys learned them by heart.

The History of Rome, Books I-VThe Republic and The LawsThe Twelve Tables

The trial of Socrates

An Athenian jury convicts Socrates of impiety and corrupting the young and sentences him to death. Plato's Apology and Crito show him defending himself and then refusing to escape from prison.

The Last Days of SocratesSocratesPlato

Plato's Laws and Aristotle's Politics

Plato's last dialogue, the Laws, and Aristotle's Politics ask what laws are for and what makes a constitution good. Aristotle teaches that some justice is natural, the same everywhere, while some is set by each city's law.

LawsPoliticsPlatoAristotle

Cicero, The Republic and The Laws

In Cicero's dialogues, Laelius describes true law as right reason in agreement with nature, the same in Rome and Athens and for all time. Christian and medieval writers built on this idea of natural law.

The Republic and The LawsCicero

Paul on the law written in the heart

In his Letter to the Romans, Paul writes that Gentiles who do not have the Law of Moses still show the work of the law written in their hearts (Romans 2:14–15), a passage later used in Christian teaching on natural law. Paul later used his rights as a Roman citizen to appeal to Caesar (Acts 25).

The BiblePaul the Apostle

The Edict of Milan

The emperors Constantine and Licinius agree to allow Christians and everyone else to follow the religion of their choice, ending the Great Persecution.

Constantine the Great

Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis

Emperor Justinian has a commission led by Tribonian collect and organize centuries of Roman law: the Code (529, revised 534), the Digest of jurists' opinions and the Institutes for students (533). Later called the Corpus Juris Civilis, it is the foundation of the civil law of Europe and Latin America.

The Institutes of JustinianJustinian I

The laws of Æthelberht of Kent

Æthelberht of Kent, the first English king to be baptized, issues the earliest laws written in English, beginning with protection for the property of the church.

Ecclesiastical History of the English PeopleBede

Alfred the Great's law book

Alfred's law book opens with the Ten Commandments and other laws from Exodus, and with the Golden Rule, before setting out the laws of the English kingdoms.

Alfred the Great

The law school at Bologna

The University of Bologna, by tradition founded in 1088, revives the study of Justinian's Digest; the teacher Irnerius made it the center of legal learning in Europe.

Gratian's Decretum

Gratian, a teacher at Bologna, compiles the Concordance of Discordant Canons, harmonizing centuries of church laws. It opens with natural law and became the basic textbook of canon law.

Decretum (Concord of Discordant Canons)Gratian

Henry II, Becket and the church courts

King Henry II's Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) try to bring clergy accused of crimes under royal courts, leading to his quarrel with Archbishop Thomas Becket, who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Henry's Assize of Clarendon (1166) used sworn local juries to report crimes.

St. Thomas Becket and the Canterbury MiraclesThomas BecketHenry II of England

Magna Carta

At Runnymede King John seals the Great Charter, promising that no free man will be imprisoned or deprived of his rights except by the lawful judgment of his peers or the law of the land. It was reissued many times and later inspired English and American liberties.

Magna CartaStephen Langton

The church withdraws from trial by ordeal

The Fourth Lateran Council forbids priests to bless trials by ordeal, such as carrying a red-hot iron. Without them, ordeals faded, and English courts turned to trial by jury.

The Siete Partidas

King Alfonso X of Castile has a great law code compiled in Spanish, drawing on Roman and canon law. It later shaped law in Spanish America and parts of the United States such as Louisiana and Texas.

Aquinas on law

In the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas defines law as an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by the one who cares for the community and made known. He explains eternal, natural, human and divine law and teaches that an unjust law is not truly law.

Summa TheologicaDe RegnoThomas Aquinas

The trial of Joan of Arc

An English-backed church court tries Joan of Arc for heresy, and she is burned at Rouen in 1431. A later church court reviewed the case and declared the trial null in 1456.

The Trial of Joan of ArcJoan of Arc

Luther burns the books of canon law

At Wittenberg on 10 December 1520 Martin Luther burns the papal bull threatening him with excommunication, together with books of church law.

Selected Sermons and Reformation TreatisesMartin Luther

Thomas More, Utopia and his trial

Thomas More, a lawyer and Lord Chancellor, publishes Utopia (1516). He later refused to accept Henry VIII as supreme head of the church in England and was tried and beheaded for treason in 1535.

UtopiaThomas MoreHenry VIII

Vitoria on the rights of the Indians

At Salamanca the Dominican friar Francisco de Vitoria lectures that the native peoples of the Americas truly owned their lands and governed themselves. He and his successors are counted among the founders of international law.

On the American Indians (De Indis)Francisco de Vitoria

The Valladolid debate

Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda argue before a royal council whether Spain may make war on and rule the native peoples of the Americas. Las Casas defends their full humanity and rights.

A Short Account of the Destruction of the IndiesBartolomé de las Casas

Suleiman the Lawgiver

The Ottoman sultan Suleiman, remembered by Turks as Kanuni, the Lawgiver, issues law codes for his empire alongside Islamic law.

Suleiman the Magnificent

Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

Richard Hooker defends the Church of England by explaining the kinds of law, eternal, natural and human, in a way that drew on Aquinas.

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (Preface and Book I)Richard Hooker

Dr Bonham's Case

Chief Justice Edward Coke suggests that the common law can control an act of Parliament that is against common right and reason, an idea later linked to judicial review.

Sir Edward Coke

The Mayflower Compact

Before landing at Plymouth, the Pilgrims sign a compact to form a civil body politic and make just and equal laws for the colony's general good.

The Mayflower Compact

Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace

The Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius argues that natural law binds nations in war and peace, a founding book of international law.

The Rights of War and Peace (Book I)Hugo Grotius

The Petition of Right

Parliament, led by Edward Coke, presents the Petition of Right to Charles I, protesting taxes without Parliament's consent and imprisonment without cause shown. Coke's Institutes, begun the same year, trained generations of English and American lawyers.

The Petition of Right (1628), the Habeas Corpus Act (1679) and the English Bill of Rights (1689)Sir Edward Coke

The Massachusetts Body of Liberties

Massachusetts Bay adopts a list of rights, drafted mainly by the Puritan minister Nathaniel Ward, including due process and a ban on inhumane, barbarous or cruel punishments.

The Massachusetts Body of LibertiesJohn Winthrop

Rutherford, Lex, Rex

The Scottish minister Samuel Rutherford argues that the law is king and that the king is under the law.

Lex, RexSamuel Rutherford

Hobbes, Leviathan

Thomas Hobbes argues that without government there would be a war of every man against every man, so people give up power to a sovereign who keeps peace by law.

LeviathanThomas Hobbes

The Habeas Corpus Act

Parliament strengthens habeas corpus, the court order requiring a jailer to bring a prisoner before a judge and show a lawful reason for holding him.

The Petition of Right (1628), the Habeas Corpus Act (1679) and the English Bill of Rights (1689)

The English Bill of Rights and Locke

After the Glorious Revolution, the English Bill of Rights limits the crown, requires Parliament's consent for taxes and forbids excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishments. John Locke's Two Treatises of Government and Letter Concerning Toleration appear the same year.

Second Treatise of GovernmentA Letter Concerning TolerationThe Petition of Right (1628), the Habeas Corpus Act (1679) and the English Bill of Rights (1689)John Locke

The Salem witch trials

In Salem, Massachusetts, a special court convicts people of witchcraft using spectral evidence, and 19 are hanged. Increase Mather warned against such evidence, and in 1697 Judge Samuel Sewall and twelve jurors publicly repented.

The Zenger trial

A New York jury acquits the printer John Peter Zenger of seditious libel after his lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, argues that the truth of what was printed should be a defense, an early victory for freedom of the press.

Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws

Montesquieu argues that liberty needs the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers, an idea the American framers used.

The Spirit of the LawsMontesquieu

Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments

The Italian writer Cesare Beccaria argues against torture and the death penalty and for clear laws and punishments no harsher than needed. His book influenced reformers in Europe and America.

On Crimes and PunishmentsCesare Beccaria

Blackstone's Commentaries

William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England explain the common law in clear prose and became the main law book of the American colonies and the young United States.

Commentaries on the Laws of EnglandWilliam Blackstone

Somerset v. Stewart

Lord Mansfield rules that James Somerset, an enslaved man brought to England, could not be forced out of England to be sold in Jamaica, a step toward ending slavery in Britain.

Somerset v. Stewart (Somerset's Case)Lord MansfieldGranville Sharp

The Virginia Declaration of Rights

George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights states that all men are by nature equally free and independent and lists rights including trial by jury and the free exercise of religion.

The Virginia Declaration of RightsGeorge Mason

The Declaration of Independence

The Continental Congress declares independence from Britain, appealing to the laws of nature and of nature's God and to the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Founding DocumentsThomas JeffersonJohn AdamsBenjamin Franklin

The Articles of Confederation

The first constitution of the United States creates a weak central government of the states in Congress; it is ratified in 1781.

The Articles of Confederation

The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

Virginia enacts Thomas Jefferson's statute, steered through the legislature by James Madison, declaring that no one may be compelled to support or attend any church.

The Virginia Statute for Religious FreedomThomas JeffersonJames Madison

The Constitution of the United States

Delegates at Philadelphia write a constitution that divides power among Congress, the President and the courts, and between the nation and the states. The same summer, the Northwest Ordinance bans slavery in the Northwest Territory.

The Founding DocumentsJames MadisonGeorge Washington

The Northwest Ordinance

The Confederation Congress sets up government for the lands north-west of the Ohio River. It protects freedom of worship and trial by jury, declares that religion, morality and knowledge are necessary to good government, and forbids slavery in the territory.

The Northwest Ordinance

The Federalist and the Anti-Federalists

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay write the Federalist essays to defend the new Constitution, while Anti-Federalist writers warn of a too-powerful national government.

The Federalist PapersThe Anti-Federalist PapersAlexander HamiltonJames MadisonJohn Jay

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

The French National Assembly declares that men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine soon argued over the French Revolution.

Reflections on the Revolution in FranceThe Burke-Paine Debate on the French RevolutionDeclaration of the Rights of Man and of the CitizenEdmund BurkeThomas Paine

The Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments to the Constitution are ratified, protecting freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly, the right to bear arms, and the rights of the accused.

The Founding DocumentsJames Madison

The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions

Madison and Jefferson write resolutions protesting the Alien and Sedition Acts as unconstitutional.

The Virginia and Kentucky ResolutionsThomas JeffersonJames Madison

Marbury v. Madison

Chief Justice John Marshall rules that it is the duty of the courts to say what the law is and that a law contrary to the Constitution is void: the principle of judicial review.

Marbury v. MadisonJohn MarshallJames Madison

The Napoleonic Code

France's Civil Code, prepared under Napoleon, sets out in clear articles equality of citizens before the law, property and contracts. It influenced civil codes across Europe and Latin America.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The abolition of the slave trade

After a long campaign by William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and many Christian abolitionists, Britain's Parliament abolishes the slave trade; the United States bans importing enslaved people from 1 January 1808. Britain abolished slavery in most of its colonies by an act of 1833.

William Wilberforce

McCulloch v. Maryland and Dartmouth College

In McCulloch the Marshall Court upholds the national bank and limits states' power to tax it; in Dartmouth College it protects a private college's charter as a contract. Daniel Webster argued both cases.

McCulloch v. MarylandTrustees of Dartmouth College v. WoodwardJohn MarshallDaniel Webster

Worcester v. Georgia

The Supreme Court rules that Georgia's laws have no force in Cherokee territory. Georgia ignored the ruling, and the Cherokee were later forced west on the Trail of Tears (1838–1839).

Worcester v. GeorgiaJohn Marshall

The Amistad case

The Supreme Court frees Africans who had taken over the slave ship Amistad, ruling that they had been unlawfully kidnapped. Former President John Quincy Adams argued for them, and Justice Joseph Story wrote the opinion.

United States v. The AmistadJoseph StoryJohn Quincy Adams

Bastiat, The Law

Frédéric Bastiat argues that law exists to protect life, liberty and property, and that law is perverted when it is used to take from some for the benefit of others.

The LawFrédéric Bastiat

Dred Scott v. Sandford

The Supreme Court rules that Black Americans could not be citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories, deepening the crisis that led to the Civil War. Lincoln answered it in his debates with Stephen Douglas.

Dred Scott v. SandfordThe Lincoln-Douglas DebatesAbraham LincolnStephen A. Douglas

The Emancipation Proclamation

On 1 January 1863 President Lincoln declares enslaved people in the areas still in rebellion to be free, and opens the Union army to Black soldiers.

The Emancipation ProclamationAbraham LincolnFrederick Douglass

The Lieber Code

Lincoln issues rules for the conduct of Union soldiers written by the jurist Francis Lieber, an early modern code of the laws of war.

Abraham Lincoln

The first Geneva Convention

Nations agree to protect wounded soldiers and the medical workers who care for them, under the sign of the red cross. Clara Barton led the campaign for the United States to join in 1882.

Clara Barton

The Reconstruction amendments

The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery (1865), the Fourteenth guarantees citizenship, due process and the equal protection of the laws (1868), and the Fifteenth forbids denying the vote on account of race (1870).

The Founding DocumentsSlaughter-House CasesFrederick Douglass

Holmes, The Common Law

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., a Civil War veteran and later a Supreme Court justice, argues that the law grows from experience more than from logic.

The Common LawOliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Plessy v. Ferguson

The Supreme Court upholds racial segregation on railroad cars under the rule of separate but equal. Justice John Marshall Harlan dissents alone, saying the Constitution is color-blind.

Plessy v. FergusonJohn Marshall Harlan

The Nineteenth Amendment

The Constitution forbids denying the vote on account of sex, the goal Susan B. Anthony worked for until her death in 1906.

The Founding DocumentsSusan B. Anthony

Meyer, Pierce and the rights of parents

In Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) the Supreme Court protects teaching in a foreign language, and in Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) it strikes down an Oregon law requiring all children to attend public schools, holding that parents may choose religious and private schools.

Meyer v. NebraskaPierce v. Society of Sisters

Gobitis and Barnette: the flag salute

In 1940 the Court lets schools require Jehovah's Witness children to salute the flag; three years later, in West Virginia v. Barnette, it reverses itself and rules that no official can force citizens to profess a belief.

Minersville School District v. GobitisWest Virginia State Board of Education v. BarnetteRobert H. Jackson

Korematsu v. United States

The Supreme Court upholds the wartime removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. In 2018 the Court said the decision had been gravely wrong the day it was decided.

Korematsu v. United States

The United Nations Charter

Fifty nations sign the Charter of the United Nations at San Francisco, pledging to settle disputes peacefully and to respect human rights.

The Nuremberg trials

An international tribunal at Nuremberg tries leading Nazis for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. U.S. Justice Robert H. Jackson led the American prosecution, and the court held that following orders does not excuse such crimes.

Opening Statement at the Nuremberg TrialRobert H. Jackson

The Genocide Convention

The United Nations adopts a treaty making genocide a crime under international law. The word genocide had been coined by the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin.

Raphael Lemkin

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The UN General Assembly adopts a declaration of 30 articles on human rights, drafted by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt that included René Cassin, Charles Malik and P. C. Chang.

The Universal Declaration of Human RightsEleanor Roosevelt

Brown v. Board of Education

The Supreme Court unanimously rules that separate public schools for Black and white children are inherently unequal, overturning Plessy for public education. Thurgood Marshall argued the case.

Brown v. Board of Education of TopekaSweatt v. PainterPlessy v. FergusonThurgood Marshall

Engel and Schempp: prayer in public schools

The Supreme Court rules that public schools may not lead official prayers or devotional Bible reading, while allowing the Bible to be studied for its history and literature.

Engel v. VitaleAbington School District v. Schempp

Mapp, Gideon and Miranda

The Warren Court applies key Bill of Rights protections to the states: evidence from illegal searches is excluded (Mapp, 1961), poor defendants must be given lawyers (Gideon, 1963), and suspects must be told their rights (Miranda, 1966).

Mapp v. OhioGideon v. WainwrightMiranda v. Arizona

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Jailed for protesting segregation, Martin Luther King Jr. writes that people have a moral duty to disobey unjust laws, drawing on Augustine and Aquinas: an unjust law is a human law not rooted in eternal and natural law.

Sermons and Letter from Birmingham JailI Have a DreamMartin Luther King Jr.Thomas AquinasAugustine of Hippo

The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws discrimination in public places and in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin; the Voting Rights Act of 1965 protects the right to vote.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Mandela at the Rivonia Trial

On trial in South Africa for sabotage, Nelson Mandela tells the court that he has fought for a free society in which all live together with equal opportunities, and is sentenced to life in prison.

I Am Prepared to DieLong Walk to FreedomNelson Mandela

Dignitatis Humanae

The Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom teaches that every person has a right to religious freedom rooted in human dignity. The American Jesuit John Courtney Murray helped shape it.

Dignitatis HumanaeJohn Courtney Murray

Tinker v. Des Moines

The Supreme Court rules that students do not lose their freedom of speech at the schoolhouse gate and may wear black armbands to protest a war.

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District

Wisconsin v. Yoder

The Supreme Court rules that Amish parents cannot be forced to send their children to school after eighth grade, because of their religious freedom.

Wisconsin v. Yoder

From Roe to Dobbs

Roe v. Wade (1973) declares a constitutional right to abortion; Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) reaffirms its core; Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) overrules both and returns the issue to the people and their elected representatives.

Roe v. WadePlanned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. CaseyDobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

United States v. Nixon

The Supreme Court unanimously rules that President Nixon must hand over the White House tapes; he resigned sixteen days later.

United States v. Nixon

The Americans with Disabilities Act

Congress bans discrimination against people with disabilities in jobs, public services and public places. In Olmstead v. L.C. (1999) the Court applied it to care in the community.

Olmstead v. L. C.

District of Columbia v. Heller

The Supreme Court rules that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep a handgun at home for self-defense.

District of Columbia v. Heller