Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/222

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202
UNITED STATES (Literature)

ard Hildreth, T. D. Weld, William Goodell, Lydia M. Child, H. R. Helper, M. D. Conway, E. M. Stearns, T. Stringfellow, G. Fitzhugh, A. T. Bledsoe, J. H. Hammond, Nehemiah Adams, J. H. Hopkins, Henry Wilson, and others have written on the institution of slavery; W. P. Foulke, L. Dwight, J. S. Gould, and Miss Dorothea L. Dix, on prison discipline and kindred topics; and Charles Francis Adams, jr., and his brother Henry Brooks Adams, on the management of railroads.—In no department has the intellectual development of the country been more conspicuous than in that of jurisprudence, and the treatises, digests, and reports emanating from American authors and jurists already fill several thousand volumes, and form a valuable addition to legal literature. The “Commentaries on American Law,” by James Kent, published in 1826-'30, are written with great clearness and force of reasoning, and constitute the chief manual of general reference and elementary instruction. Of the numerous works of Justice Story, those on equity jurisprudence, partnership, bailments, and “The Conflict of Laws,” are well known everywhere; the “Elements of International Law” and “History of the Law of Nations,” by Henry Wheaton, have become standard works of reference throughout the world; and the treatises of Edward Livingston on penal law, of Simon Greenleaf on evidence, of Willard Phillips on insurance, of F. Wharton on criminal law and other subjects, besides many by David Hoffman, St. George Tucker, J. K. Angell, John Bouvier, G. T. Curtis, L. S. Gushing, W. A. and John Duer, F. Hilliard, Murray Hoffman, Theophilus Parsons, Theodore Sedgwick, W. W. Story, I. F. Redfield, J. P. Bishop, T. M. Cooley, B. V. and Austin Abbott, A. M. Burrill, Charles Edwards, Isaac Edwards, Alfred Conkling, W. B. Lawrence, J. N. Taylor, John Townshend, K. H. Tyler, Emory Washburn, R. H. Dana, jr., Theodore D. Woolsey, and others, are creditable to the legal learning of the country.—The theological and religious writers of the period comprise a numerous and able body, whose works have in many instances become standard authorities on the subjects of which they treat, and, in view of the multiplicity of sects from which they emanate, express unusually broad and catholic views. In the department of Biblical criticism American theologians are everywhere honorably distinguished. Of Presbyterian writers, the most eminent are Samuel Davies (1724-'61); Samuel Miller (1769-1850), author, among other works, of several treatises on the distinguishing features of Presbyterianism; Edward Robinson (1794-1863), best known by his researches in Biblical geography; Albert Barnes (1798-1870), whose “Notes on the Gospels” and commentaries on other portions of Scripture are widely known in America and England; Nicholas Murray (“Kirwan,” 1803-'61), author of several controversial publications; Aahbel Green (1762-1848), Gardiner Spring (1785-1873), Charles Hodge (born 1797), James Richards (1793-1843), R. J. Breckenridge (1800-'71), Archibald, J. W., and Joseph A. Alexander, T. H. Skinner, I. S. Spencer, William Adams, Thomas Smyth, Robert Baird, J. H. Thornwell (1811-'62), and Henry B. Smith. The Trinitarian Congregationalists are represented by Moses Stuart (1780-1852), author of various Scriptural commentaries, and distinguished as a philologist; Leonard Woods (1798-1854), Horace Bushnell, Edwards A. Park, Lyman Beecher (1775-1863), Edward Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher, N. W. Taylor, Bennet Tyler, E. N. Kirk, Nehemiah Adams, Mark Hopkins, Nathan Lord, Joel Hawes, Leonard Bacon, G. B. Cheever, J. P. Thompson, T. C. Upham, J. Torrey, W. G. T. Shedd, H. M. Dexter, and George Punchard, author of a “History of Congregationalism,” &c. About the commencement of this period a memorable controversy took place in New England between Samuel Worcester, representing the conservative or orthodox Congregationalists, and W. E. Channing in behalf of the Unitarians, who thenceforth became an independent and, in proportion to their numbers, an important sect. The writings of Channing had great influence in moulding the opinions now generally held by Unitarians in the United States and Great Britain; and contemporary with him was a body of divines and scholars of considerable literary culture, resident chiefly in Boston and its vicinity, whose education was acquired at Harvard college, where a large proportion of the Unitarian clergy have since graduated. Prominent among these were Andrews Norton (1786-1853), author of a treatise on the “Genuineness of the Gospels;” Henry Ware, jr., and William Ware, J. G. Palfrey, Jared Sparks, N. L. Frothingham, James Walker, Orville Dewey, F. W. P. Greenwood, W. H. Furness, and G. W. Burnap. Of somewhat later date are A. P. Peabody, F. H. Hedge, G. E. Ellis, H. W. Bellows, A. A. Livermore, E. H. Sears, A. B. Muzzey, J. F. Clarke, and Samuel Osgood, afterward an Episcopalian. Distinguished from these is a rationalistic school of Unitarianism, chiefly represented by Theodore Parker (1810-'60), whose writings evince extensive scholarship and furnish frequent examples of rhetorical beauty and force. O. B. Frothingham, O. A. Bartol, John Weiss, and M. D. Conway are the most conspicuous of his successors of the same school. The principal writers of the Protestant Episcopal denomination are Bishop C. P. McIlvaine, author of a treatise on the “Evidences of Christianity;” Bishop T. C. Brownell, author of commentaries on the “Book of Common Prayer;” Bishops Alonzo Potter, George Burgess, J. M. Wainwright, J. H. Hopkins, A. C. Coxe, and W. I. Kip; S. F. Jarvis, S. H. Tyng, F. L. Hawks, J. S. Stone, F. D. Huntingdon, S. H. Turner, G. T. Bedell, R. A. Hallam, T. W. Coit, Calvin Colton, A. H. Vinton, J. A. Spencer, and