WilliamW. Fisher III 62 pie, one comes away from Hendrik Hartog’s exploration of the career and writings of Elizabeth Packard with a somewhat enhanced appreciation of the unfairness of the legally constituted system of gender relations in the nineteenth-century United States, but nowhere near as strong as reaction as one gets from reading traditional narratives of the lives of women who bore the yoke of covertured-^ (6) Hold the line against the mob. Some American historians believe that, by identifying and celebrating the enduring cultural traditions of the United States, they can help defend the achievements of liberalism (“Great Society”- style liberalism, not classical liberalism) against the intensifying skepticism and hostility of the increasingly selfish middle class. Among legal historians, the most forthright exponent of this view is William Nelson. In a survey of recent work in legal history, he argues; “Historians may ... be able to help by identitying those legal traditions which are an essential part of our legal culture. For if those traditions can be identified, judges and other decisionmakers ... will feel constrained to follow them in order to avoid initiating revolutionary changes in that culture.”'-^ In a subsequent exchange with Robert Gordon, he elaborates: I think the government we have nowis precisely the government that the majority of Americans want and the government that best promotes the majority’s interests and well-being. The communities of Middle America that periodically coalesce into a majority are the ultimate source of political power in the nation as we know it, and I fear government in accordance with the naked political preferences of this majority. I can think of no wav to restrain this majority other than by appeals to law. 127 The job of the politically responsible historian, he suggests, is to provide the culture an understanding of the character and development of the legal system that will discourage themfromindulgingtheir more selfish or short-time desires. This objective has the worrisome characteristic that it must be pursued covertly. To acknowledge to your readers that your goal is to inhibit their ability to get what they “want” will presumably make themmore skeptical of your arguments. In any event, none of the four methodologies considered in this essay is likely to have much value for historians who take Nelson’s position, simply because all four - for different reasons and in different ways - are disrespectful of the cultural canon. To take just one of Nelson’s examples, the likeFor an inspiring collection of such narratives, see Carol Weisbrod, “Divorce Stories: Readings. Comments, and Questions on Lawand Narrative,” Brigham Young University Law Review (1991): 143. William Nelson and John Phillip Reid, The Literature of American Legal History (New York: Oceana Publications, 1985), 197. William Nelson, “Exchange with Robert Gordon on Critical Legal Studies,” Law and History Review6 (1988): 167.
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