James Kent

Until James Kent, retired chancellor of New York, began publication of his Commentaries on American Law in 1826, no one had written about the American legal system as a whole. Kent's landmark four volumes, finished in 1830 (close to the time he underwent the "wonderful irksome" task of sitting for his portrait), examined international law, American constitutional law, the sources of state law, and the law of personal rights and property.

A staunch conservative who deplored expanding suffrage beyond property owners, Kent was a champion of individual rights. In response to a temperance committee plea that he set an example by signing an abstinence pledge, he declared: "I never have been drunk, and, by the blessing of God, I never will get drunk, but I have a constitutional privilege to get drunk, and that privilege I will not sign away."