Historical Anomalies in the Law of Libel and Slander
HISTORICAL ANOMALIES IN THE LAW OF LIBEL AND SLANDER BY EDWIN A. JAGGARD ˃—˂ Foreword BY Douglas A.Hedin Editor, MLHP After graduating the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1882, Edwin Ames Jaggard moved to St. Paul to practice law. In 1891 he began lecturing at the University of Minnesota College of Law on torts, taxes and criminal law. In 1895, his two volume behemoth Hand-Book of the Law of Torts was published by West Publishing Company. He was elected to the District Court of Ramsey County in 1898, and served from 1899 to 1905. While a trial judge, he continued teach- ing at the Law College and writing law books. In 1903, he addressed the National Editorial Association, an organization of newspaper editors and publishers, on “anom- alies” or “primeval abnormalities” in the law of libel and slander, which he had researched while writing his treatise on tort law a few years earlier. Tracing developments in the law of defamation through the centuries, he came to its current state in this country: No other government has dared to allow the common people to say so freely what they think about it. Russia stands at the one extreme; the United States at the other. And is this not another case where the least government is the best government? It is true that when the terrible shadow of war has rested upon our land, it has sometimes seemed as if this gracious liberty of the press had been ungratefully turned into treacherous license; and that at other times, happily rare, we have been appalled by the ravening of human wolves.
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