Kent's appointment was not Columbia's first foray into legal education. In the pre-Revolutionary era, King's College had a Professorship of Law at least in nominal existence. In 1773, King's College graduate and anatomy professor John Vardill was preparing to depart for London to be ordained in the Anglican Church. As a farewell present, the Governors of the College voted him 100 pounds and on December 20, 1773, upon motion of President Myles Cooper, they elected him a "Fellow and Professor of Natural Law." However, it is improbable that Vardill fulfilled any of his professorial duties, as he must have sailed from New York very soon after his appointment for on April 2, 1774, he was in London being ordained. Another attempt at creating a law professorship at King's College was made in April 1774 when William Tryon, Governor of the Province of New York, granted the College's Governors 10,000 acres of land, the income of which was to be used for the support and maintenance of one or more "Tryonian Professors, the first Professor so to be appointed to be a professor of the Municipal Laws of England." Yet apparently no Tryonian professor was ever appointed and after the Revolution, the state of New York relinquished the lands to the new state of Vermont. After the Revolution the governing Board of Regents of the College, renamed Columbia College, determined in December 1784 to establish a Faculty of Law to be comprised of a Professor of the Law of Nature and Nations, a Professor of the Roman Civil Law, and a Professor of the Municipal Law. However, this plan like Tryon's, was not realized and when in 1787 the control of the College reverted to a Board of Trustees, the project of the Regents was seemingly forgotten.
In 1792 the College finally appeared ready and committed to establishing a course in legal studies. The financial condition of the College was significantly improved by a grant from the state of New York in partial reparation of
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James Kent, engraving by Asher B. Durand after the portrait by F.R. Spencer ("A History of the School of Law Columbia University") |
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wartime losses as well as a further sum of 750 pounds a year for five years to be applied to the payment of salaries of additional professors. In June of that year the Trustees reported that they needed several new chairs, including one in law. In their search for someone to fill the new law professorship, the Trustees were guided by the recommendations of Judge John Sloss Hobart and Chief Justice of the United States John Jay, who were both prominent Federalist friends of Kent. On December 24, 1793, upon Dr. Samuel Bard's nomination, the Board of Trustees elected James Kent to occupy the newly established chair at a stipend of 200 pounds a year. Upon hearing of his appointment, Kent conveyed the news to his brother in a letter on January 7, 1794: "…I am allowed until next November to prepare and then I shall read two lectures of an hour long every week for Winters Seasons only. These are the Terms and I conclude the appointment not only honorable and profitable, but will even aid my professional practice at the Bar."
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