James Coolidge Carter (October 14, 1827 – February 14, 1905) was a New York City lawyer, a partner in the firm that eventually became Carter Ledyard & Milburn, which he helped found in 1854.
Carter entered the law office of Edward Kent, son of ChancellorJames Kent, in New York, and in 1853 was admitted to the bar, starting a prominent law practice which later became known as Carter Ledyard & Milburn.[1]
Carter was an influential legal theorist among fellow Mugwumps. He deeply distrusted politicians and most elected officials. Instead he put his trust in disinterested experts, especially judges. He equated common law with custom, and his condemnation of legislation inconsistent with custom, reflected his Mugwumpism. He tried to synthesize traditional thinking with modernity. For example, Carter clung to support for active government intervention he learned from the antebellum Whigs, but he more and more embrace antigovernment positions typical of antebellum Jacksonians. He tried to synthesize traditional faith in timeless, objective moral principles with a more modern vision of evolving customary norms. Given growing problems of industrial urban society he saw the need for positive government but wanted judges to rule not politicians.[7]
Carter was the leader of the resistance to the codification movement led by David Dudley Field II.[8][9] It is because of Carter's vigorous opposition to Field that the state of New York repeatedly refused to enact Field's civil code.[8][9] As a result of Carter's efforts, large portions of contract and tort law remain mostly uncodified in New York and a majority of U.S. states, and exist in those states only in the form of case law.
In 1897, he donated $5,000 towards the construction of the Randolph Tucker Memorial Hall at Washington and Lee University, estimated at that time to cost $50,000.[20]
^Lewis A. Grossman (2002). "James Coolidge Carter and Mugwump Jurisprudence". Law and History Review. 20 (3): 577–629. JSTOR1556320.
^ abReimann, Mathias (Winter 1989). "The Historical School Against Codification: Savigny, Carter, and the Defeat of the New York Civil Code". American Journal of Comparative Law. 37 (1): 95–119. JSTOR840443.
^ abMasferrer, Aniceto (October 2008). "Defense of the Common Law Against Postbellum American Codification: Reasonable and Fallacious Argumentation". American Journal of Legal History. 50 (4): 355–430. JSTOR25734135.
^George W. Martin, Causes and Conflicts: The Centennial History of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York (1870-1970), Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1970.
^Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Reports 36, p. 41.
