I am very sad to report on the passing of Robert A. Ferguson, who was the George Edward Woodberry emeritus professor at Columbia Law School. I did not have the chance to take a course with him — he arrived my third year and the one course he taught in the law school that year (on the trial in American life — a topic on which I would love to have studied with him) I couldn't get into. But I deeply admired his work. I remember reading Law and Letters in American Culture early on in my graduate school career and being so captivated by his broad knowledge of literary lawyers (Webster and Lincoln were obvious choices, but there were so many others — such as Richard Henry Dana). There's so much learning in that book — and it so reminds me of Robert Cover's Justice Accused, another book that repays each re-reading. As my tastes matured as a scholar, I have come to appreciate both of those books so much — and think of them as the high point of scholarship on pre-Civil War legal history. I just realized that my copy of Law and Letters is boxed up and sitting in my garage, waiting for shipment to Tuscaloosa. But I do have his charming book on The American Enlightenment, 1750-1820 on the desk in my office now. It joins literature to the ideas of Revolution, which is one of the things I have so much struggled to do in my own work, though for a latter period. The fictional (and periodical) literature of a people reflects so well, I think, core values — and conflicts over values — and they're such under-utilized sources for legal historians. He was, to be blunt about it, a fabulous scholar.
I remember well one vignette from my first year of graduate school when my mentor Alan Heimert saw Law and Letters in my packpack and asked about my reaction. We spoke a little about what I liked and then I said, it seems like a second generation of Perry Miller's The Life of the Mind in America from Revolution through Civil War. And he sort of tilted his head, and said, "well, third generation, actually. He was one of my students."
I had the honor of getting to know Dr. Ferguson a little after my time in New York concluded — he was kind to comment on some of my work on nineteenth century law and literature; we had a minor and friendly disagreement over the interpretation of charitable trusts in the pre-Civil War era (at 1193-94); and he contributed to Morton Horwitz' festschrift. He was also incredibly supportive of scholars working law and the humanities — and then has done such powerful work on incarceration in American more recently. I remember thinking that it was an exciting career move for Ferguson to shift over from the humanities to contemporary politics towards the end of his career. While I'm far from the scholar he is, I'm making a similar transition.
The Columbia Law School memorial is here. I know his students and colleagues on Morningside Heights are sad at his passing. But I look forward to continuing to gain insight and inspiration from his work for the rest of my career.
Thanks to David Shields for bringing this news to my attention.
Law and Letters in the Early Republic was one of the first books I read in grad school. Ferguson was a master story teller of the early republic's literary leanings….