James Bradley Thayer

For the U.S. Army general, see James B. Thayer. For other people named James Thayer, see James Thayer (disambiguation).
James Bradley Thayer
Born(1831-01-15)January 15, 1831
Haverhill, Massachusetts
DiedFebruary 14, 1902(1902-02-14) (aged 71)
OccupationLegal scholar
Academic background
EducationHarvard University
Academic work
Sub-disciplinehistorical evolution of law
InstitutionsHarvard Law School
Notable studentsOliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Learned Hand
Notable ideasconceptualize rational basis review

James Bradley Thayer (January 15, 1831 – February 14, 1902) was an American legal theorist and educator known for articulating the concept of rational basis review.

Life

Born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard College in 1852, where he established the overcoat fund for needy undergraduates.[1] In 1856 he graduated from Harvard Law School, was admitted to the bar of Suffolk County and began to practice law in Boston. From 1873 to 1883 he was Royall professor of law at Harvard. In 1883 he was transferred to the professorship which after 1893 was known as the Weld professorship and which he held until his death on February 14, 1902. He took a special interest in the historical evolution of law.[2]

He wrote The Origin and Scope of the American Doctrine of Constitutional Law (1893); Cases on Evidence (1892); Cases on Constitutional Law (1895);[3][4] The Development of Trial by Jury (1896); A Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law (1898), and a short life of John Marshall (1901); and edited the twelfth edition of Kent's Commentaries and the Letters of Chauncey Wright (1877), and A Westward Journey with Mr. Emerson (1884).[2]

Rational basis review

The concept of rational basis review can be traced to his influential 1893 article, "The Origin and Scope of American Constitutional Law." Thayer argued that statutes should be invalidated only if their unconstitutionality is "so clear that it is not open to rational question."[5]

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., a student of Thayer, articulated a version of what would become rational basis review in his canonical dissent in Lochner v. New York and argued that "the word 'liberty' in the Fourteenth Amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the traditions of our people and our law."

Bibliography

Wikisource has original works by or about:
James Bradley Thayer
  • Legal Essays BiblioBazaar, 2010, ISBN 9781240028337
  • A Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law, BiblioLife, 2015, ISBN 9781298978707

References

  1. ^ Edes, G.W. (1922). Annals of the Harvard Class of 1852. Privately printed. p. 430. Retrieved November 9, 2015.
  2. ^ a b Chisholm 1911.
  3. ^ Currier, Charles F. A. (1894). "Review of Cases on Constitutional Law". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 5: 162–163. ISSN 0002-7162. JSTOR 1009125.
  4. ^ Currier, Charles F. A. (1895). "Review of Cases on Constitutional Law. Parts III and IV". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 5: 150–151. doi:10.1177/000271629500500617. ISSN 0002-7162. JSTOR 1008666.
  5. ^ Posner, Richard A. (2012). "The Rise and Fall of Judicial Self-Restraint". California Law Review. 100 (3): 519, 522. Retrieved February 24, 2015.