KENT, JAMES ( 1763-1847). An eminent American jurist, born in Frederi•ksburg)), Put nam County, N. Y., July 31, 1763, the son of Morse and Hannah Rogers Kent. Ilis father was a lawyer of soine distinction; and the son, graduating from Yale College in 1781, entered upon the study of law. was admitted to the liar in 1785, and began the practice of his profession at Poughkeepsie. Ile was elected to the New York Assembly in 17(10. 1792 and 1796. He re moved to New York City in 1793, and during the same year was chosen to fill the new professor ship of law in C(dumbia College. The early reemmit ion of his abilities by Hamilton. Jay, and other leaders of the Federalist Party, to which he had attached himself, led to his appointment and rapid advancement as a judicial officer. In 1797 he became Recorder of New York City; a year later he was appointed a justice of the State Supreme Court by Governor Jay. In 1804 he was promoted to the Chief-Justiceship, and in 1814 to the position of Chancellor. This office he held until 1823, when his age reached the con stitutional limit of sixty years, and compelled his retirement from the bench. He had won a high reputation both as a common-law and equity judge; and his judicial opinions, printed mainly in Caines's and Johnson's reports, are still re garded as valuable and authoritative expositions of legal and equitable principles. Upon his re
tirement from the bench, he was reappointed to the professorship of law at Columbia, which had remained unoccupied since his resignation in 1798. He entered upon his academie duties with great enthusiasm, remodeled and expanded the lectures which lie had delivered under his pre lions appointment. and attracted a considerable number of students. Tiring of these duties. as lie wrote at a later period, he abandoned them in 1826, and published a portion of his lectures in the form of volumes first and second of his fa mous Commcntorics Upon Americaa Law. A third volume was added in I828, and the fourth appeared in 1830. It has been said of these com mentaries, with entire justice, that they have had a deeper and more lasting influence in the formation of our national character than any other secular book of the last century. They have passed through fourteen editions and continue to rank as a legal classic. He died in New' York City December 12, 1847. Consult: Memoirs and Let ters of Chancellor Kent, by William Kent (Bos ton, 1S9S).