As a twenty-year-old history buff studying in Williamsburg, Virginia, I made a point of taking advantage of the colonial city’s rich historical resources. I spent afternoons wading through antiquarian bookstores and perusing ancient documents within Williamsburg’s diverse historical archives. 

One day, I discovered a very special exhibit. A noted Williamsburg bookseller had decided to reproduce and sell, in its entirety, a library of “must have” books which were recommended in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to his nephew Peter Carr. In addition to the Jefferson list, the bookseller determined to build and sell a library using well preserved, first editions of the most significant books of the Founders’ generation. Near the top of his list was the four-volume series, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England. It was a wise choice.
 
Blackstone: America’s Unlikely Founding Father
Next to the Bible, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England were among the best-selling and most influential books at the time of the War for Independence. In them, William Blackstone explained that the Western legal tradition known as the “Common Law” was an application of biblical principles to local custom. He explained that judges may not invent laws, but only interpret them, and that tyrannical judges must be opposed. He insisted that divine revelation was the foundation for law, and any human law which contradicted the moral law of God was null and void. Blackstone’s influence on many of the Founding Fathers was simply phenomenal. In part as a result of the Commentaries on the Laws of England, the Common Law was officially incorporated by direct reference into our federal Constitution, thus underscoring and reinforcing the distinctively Christian nature of American law and jurisprudence.
 
Though Blackstone was a monarchist, this shortcoming (as well as his occasional lack of rigor in applying biblical law) was largely winked at by the Founders, who drew deeply from the blueprint of a Christian law order that Blackstone communicated in his writings.  Jefferson was the exception. His anglophobia was such that he scoffed at the near universal colonial devotion to the Commentaries on the Laws of England by calling devotee’s of the British jurist “Blackstonian spiders.” Oh well, Jefferson also rewrote the Bible to remove references to the miraculous.

My Romance with the ‘Commentaries on the Laws of England’
As a student in colonial Williamsburg, I was sorely afflicted with the sickness bibliphilia antiqua (love of old books). The remedy, I thought, was to spend hours drinking in this special collection in person. At first, I hoped to purchase the four volumes of Blackstone, but when I discovered the price, I concluded that $20,000 was too steep for the budget of an impoverished college student. If I accomplished nothing else, my goal was to persuade the bookseller to lend to me his copy of the first edition of Blackstone. We struck a compromise: he kindly allowed me to come into his library in the afternoons and read at his table from the first edition, an offer I gladly accepted. They were wonderful and inspiring afternoons that set in motion a personal vision to see men reminded of the biblical foundations of the law, a vision which has been realized in the Vision Forum Ministries Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy.

Blackstone Provides the Answers to the Defining Questions of the Day

(1) Why the God of the Bible is the only true source of all laws
(2) Why laws which contradict the moral law of God are null and void
(3) Why judges may not invent laws, and citizens may not permit judges to become tyrants by doing so
(4) How patriarchy and the biblical family model is a basic presupposition of law

A Remarkable Find and a Special Offer
The library of the Williamsburg bookseller is long gone now, and so is that magnificent first edition of Blackstone, but the smell of the ancient volumes, the feel of the leather, and the many happy hours pouring through this original document are as real to me today as they were nearly twenty years ago. Since then, I have been on a quest to find an affordable, beautiful, leather-bound edition of the book that God used to bequeath a distinctively Christian perspective on law to our Founding Fathers, Supreme Court, judges, pastors, and lawyers.

My search is now over. Vision Forum is pleased to offer this month a leather-bound facsimile edition of the four-volume set unparalleled for its quality. The binding design replicates the original and features 22-karat gold stamping. Four-color marbleized endleaves and a silk ribbon marker add to the luxury. The paper is, of course, acid free, as befits a timeless classic first published between 1755 and 1758. The problem is that there are fewer than two hundred sets of this magnificent edition in print, though I have purchased many of them to make available to the friends of Vision Forum at a dramatically reduced price between now and the end of the month, or until the last sets are sold, whichever comes first. Purchase all four leather-bound books for just $295 — a savings of $55.
 
A Special Note to Friends of Doug’s Blog:
We sold out of about a third of the available inventory within the last half day. If you want a set of the beauties, I recommend ordering within the next 72 hours.