BOOKS — CONSTITUTION DAY: ​“The Birth of American Law”

In The Birth of American Law: An Italian Philosopher and the American Revolution, his­to­ri­an John Bessler reveals the pro­found influ­ence that the Italian thinker, Cesare Beccaria, had on the con­sti­tu­tion­al founders of the United States, includ­ing George Washington and John Adams. Beccaria’s best­selling book, On Crimes and Punishments, argued against tor­ture and the death penal­ty, say­ing only pun­ish­ments proven absolute­ly nec­es­sary should be used. Bessler shows that the death penal­ty was more con­tro­ver­sial at the writ­ing of the con­sti­tu­tion than is often assumed today. America did aban­don England’s Bloody Code and even­tu­al­ly most cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, but still retains cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Julie Silverbrook, exec­u­tive direc­tor of The Constitutional Sources Project, said of the book, ​“John Bessler mas­ter­ful­ly and com­pre­hen­sive­ly traces how Cesare Beccaria’s On Crimes and Punishments deeply affect­ed ear­ly American views on crime and the pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of pun­ish­ments for crime. Just as John Adams gift­ed Beccaria’s trea­tise to his sons, John Bessler has gift­ed Beccaria to a new gen­er­a­tion of Americans.”

UPDATE: In 2015, Bessler’s book was giv­en the Scribes Book Award as the best work of legal schol­ar­ship in 2014 by the American Society of Legal Writers.

(J. Bessler, ​“The Birth of American Law: An Italian Philosopher and the American Revolution,” (pre-order) Carolina Academic Press, September, 2014; DPIC post­ed Sept. 17, 2014). See Books and History of the Death Penalty. Listen to a pod­cast with Prof. Bessler.