In these essays J. Willard Hurst shows the correlation between the conception of individual freedom and the application of law in the nineteenth-century United States—how individuals sought to use law to increase both their personal freedom and their opportunities for personal growth. These essays in jurisprudence and legal history are also a contribution to the study of social and intellectual history in the United States, to political science, and to economics as it concerns the role of public policy in our economy. The nonlawyer will find in them demonstration of how "technicalities" express deep issues of social values. "Ought to be indispensable reading for any conscientious future American law student and should be one of the most palatable items in the intellectual fare of all scholars in the field of the social sciences concerned with the development of the American scene."— Northwestern University Law Review J. Willard Hurst (1910–1997) was professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School until his retirement in 1980. Internationally recognized as the dean of American legal historians, Hurst was also author of The Law Makers (1950), Law and Economic Growth (1964), and A Legal History of Money in the United States (1973).