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20 T. Jefferson L. Rev. 129 (1998)
Thomas Jefferson as an Unsuccessful Advocate for Freedom in Howell v. Netherland

handle is hein.journals/tjeflr20 and id is 135 raw text is: PERSPECTIVE THOMAS JEFFERSON AS AN UNSUCCESSFUL ADVOCATE FOR FREEDOM IN HOWELL V. NETHERLAND Aaron Schwabach* I. INTRODUCTION In pre-Revolutionary America, the study of law was a dreary ramble.' Neither case reporters nor casebooks existed for American cases; all law books were imported. As a result, the record of case law from that time is incomplete, and only two of Thomas Jefferson's legal arguments are still available to the researcher. In an attempt to fill in the lacunae in Virginia case law, Thomas Jefferson collected and prepared for publication a set of colonial Virginia law reports; these were published three years after his death as Reports of Cases Determined in the General Court of Virginia from 1730 to 1740 and from 1768 to 1772.2 Of these cases, only two were cases which Jefferson had argued, apparently selected for their subject matter. One dealt with the relationship between the State and the clergy;3 the other was a suit by an indentured servant seeking freedom from his state of involuntary servitude.4 * B.A., Antioch College; J.D., University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall); As- sociate Professor, Thomas Jefferson School of Law. I. DUMAS MALONE, JEFFERSON THE VIRGINIAN 69 (Little, Brown and Co. 1948), quoting John Adams. 2. Argument in the case of Howell v. Netherland (April 1770), reprinted in I WRITINGS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 373, 373-74 (Paul Leicester Ford ed., G.P. Putnam's Sons 1892-1899) (hereinafter Howell v. Netherland). 3. Godwin v. Lunan (Oct. 1771), reprinted in Howell v. Netherland, supra note 2, at 399-412. 4. Howell v. Netherland, supra note 2. For a fictionalized account of the trial, see MAX BYRD, JEFFERSON: A NOVEL 253-56 (Bantam Books 1993).