Presented by Willard Hurst as part of his course "Introduction to Modern American Legal History" at the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1978. This lecture opens with Tocqueville predictions from the 1830's on the future of American society. The political legal order that he observes allows for broad suffrage and an ever-increasing material standard of living. However, as Hurst points out, this growth also bred a great deal of political apathy. Through the decentralization of public policy and the administration, the government worked to encourage private association and voluntary efforts. Hurst explains how this practice began in the 1790's with the first philanthropic associations, expanded with settlement west of the Appalachians, and still exists in present-day small enterprises and the media. This lecture continues to examine the relation of the public to the government, and special attention is paid to accessibility to the courts and judicial power. This leads into a consideration of relation of law to private markets, and the legal processes that work to allocate scarce economic resources. Hurst investigates the Land Ordinance of 1785, the presence of special interests in this act, and the non-market measured values that played into its results.
