La rhétorique conservatrice du monde judiciaire américain durant l'âge doré
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Abstract EN:
In the late nineteenth century, the legal elite used social darwinism of the sumner and spencer type as an integrative metaphor in a conservative-oriented rhetoric. But judges and lawyers alike borrowed from their own conceptual lore to vindicate capitalism. As the inheritors of an aristocratic ideal, they found it necessary, though, to persuade their contemporaries that their role as intermediaries was legitimate. Legal decisions gradually built up a firm barrier against progressive thought and economic paternalism. The life, liberty and property components of the fourteenth amendments figured prominently among the great working principles. Inspired by judges stephen field and david brewer, influenced by the writings of thomas cooley and christopher tiedeman, and under the pressure of events (labour unrest, industrial combinations, the pollock case), jurists also resorted to such concepts as natural rights, the freedom of enterprise and the freedom of contract. They believed in the merits of economic liberalism and most of all in law as an ideal world image.
Abstract FR:
Pour une certaine elite juridique a la fin du dix-neuvieme siecle, le darwinisme social incarne par sumner et spencer a servi de metaphore structurante dans un discours de tendance conservatrice. Mais juges et avocats disposaient de leur propre patrimoine conceptuel pour justifier le capitalisme. Continuateurs d'une tradition patricienne, il leur a fallu neanmoins convaincre leurs contemporains que leur role d'intermediation etait legitime. Au fil des decisions de justice s'est peu a peu constitue un socle de resistance au progressisme social et a l'interventionnisme economique. Parmi les grands principes sanctionnables figure la trinite vie-liberte-propriete du quatorzieme amendement. Sous l'inspiration des juges stephen field et david brewer, sous l'influence doctrinale de thomas cooley et christopher tiedeman et sous la pression des evenements (l'agitation sociale, les concentrations industrielles, l'affaire pollock), d'autres concepts le droit naturel, la liberte d'entreprendre, la liberte de contracter sont mobilises. Les professionnels de la justice croyaient aux vertus du liberalisme economique et surtout au droit en tant que representation ideale du monde.