Kent served as associate or puisne justice on the New York Supreme Court until 1804 when he became chief justice. While serving on the State Supreme Court, Kent was responsible for two significant innovations: written opinions and published reports. Kent was instrumental in getting his friend William Johnson appointed official reporter in 1806. Johnson's Reports, produced in close collaboration with Kent, became a model for such publications throughout the country. New York Supreme Court justices also performed executive or legislative duties since they, along with the state's chancellor and governor, formed the Council of Revision, which held the veto power over all legislative bills.
On April 3, 1807, Kent exercised his veto power on a bill that involved his former employer: Columbia College. The College's 1787 charter gave the Trustees the authority to fill any vacancies on their Board. In the bill entitled, "An act relative to Columbia College in the City of New York," state politicians sought to deprive the Trustees of their power by transferring the choice of Trustees to the Regents of the University of the State of New York. In reporting his objection, Chief Justice Kent stated, "The vacancies among the trustees of Columbia College have hitherto been supplied in a mode pointed out by the charter, by a succession of virtuous and learned men under whose care, as it would appear from the annual reports of the regents, the interests of the college have been discreetly managed, and the cause of learning successfully promoted." Kent further declared it to be a "sound principle in free governments that the charters of corporations cannot be affected without due process of law." The council's veto was not overridden. If not for this service, Columbia may well have anticipated the experience of Dartmouth in the infamous Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17US518 (1819).
Kent reached the apex of his political career with his elevation to chancellor in 1814. Kent was reluctant to accept the appointment because the court of Chancery customarily had little influence. However, with Kent as chancellor, that tradition would change. In his Memoirs he wrote, "I took the court as if it had been a new institution, and never before known in the United States. I had nothing to guide me and was left at liberty to assume all such English Chancery powers and jurisdiction as I felt applicable under our Constitution." Kent thus essentially became the creator of equity jurisdiction in the United States.
The Constitutional Convention of 1821 had provided that judges should retire on reaching the age of 60. Therefore, Kent's judicial career came to a close on July 31, 1823. Resentful of his forced retirement, Kent returned to New York City on October 29, 1823 with the intention of writing opinions as a chamber counsel. However, a more enticing opportunity came along less than one month later. During their November 3 meeting, the Board of Trustees of Columbia College passed a resolution that "a Professorship of Law be established in this College" and unanimously elected Kent to fill this post. Kent accepted this reappointment and on February 2, 1824, he delivered his second inaugural address in the College Hall. He proceeded to give two lectures a week for a total of 30 lectures between February 6 and May 18.
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James Kent, towards the end of his life (Columbiana--"James Kent" file) |
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Fourteen students and 33 auditors attended the lectures. The students underwent a private examination every Saturday on the two preceding lectures of the week. His second course was more ambitious, consisting of 50 lectures delivered in College Hall between November 8, 1824 and April 12, 1825 with 15 students and 21 auditors in attendance. His third course, from October 4, 1825 to April 22, 1826, was given entirely in his private office as the class was made up of only 13 students and no auditors. This was the final course that Kent ever taught at Columbia for as he expressed in his Memoirs, "Having got heartily tired of lecturing, I abandoned it." Kent continued nominally to be Professor of Law until his death in 1847, but after 1826 his status was similar to that of a professor emeritus: he did no teaching and received no compensation from Columbia.
In the spring of 1826, Kent's son, William, persuaded his father to employ his Columbia law lectures as the basis for an exposition of the common law of the United States similar to how Blackstone had used his lectures to expound the laws of England. Thus, at the age of 63, Kent began the rewriting and expansion of his lectures for the purpose of publication. Kent borrowed Blackstone's title of Commentaries and published Volume I at his own expense at a cost, in sheets, of $1,0276.27. The sale of this first volume exceeded his expectations, and he subsequently continued his work. A complete four-volume edition of Kent's Commentaries on American Law was printed in April of 1830. Kent's work is divided into six parts: the law of nations; the government and constitutional jurisprudence of the United States; the various sources of municipal law of the several states; the law concerning the rights of persons; the law concerning personal property; and the law concerning real property. In the preface to his first volume, Kent acknowledged his gratefulness to Columbia's Board of Trustees for the trust they had in him and described his work as the "lectures [that] are the fruit of that trust." The sixth edition of Kent's Commentaries, published in 1848, was the last edition revised by the author, but he did not live to see it. He died on December 12, 1847 at age 84. Ultimately Kent's Commentaries would go through 14 editions in the nineteenth century, with all changes (including those made by Kent and his successors) occurring in the notes. Kent would thus continue to influence the education of lawyers and the development of law in the United States.
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