Two Paul Carringtons

For the revisions on University, Court, and Slave, I've been re-reading Paul Carrington's work on pre-Civil War law professors and the possibilities of education regarding Union and anti-slavery thought -- especially The Revolutionary Idea of University Legal Education, Teaching Law and Virtue at Translyvania University: The George Wythe Tradition in the Antebellum Years, but also The Butterfly Effects: The Possibilities of Teaching Law in a Democracy.  It will surprise no one that I'm more skeptical than Professor Carrington about the ability of lessons learned (or perhaps I should say taught) in law school to influence people later in life -- though I recognize that studying the ideas conveyed in all sorts of places, from graduation speeches, to literary addresses, to cemetery dedications, can help us understand the world intellectuals sought to create.

So you can understand my amazement when  -- as I was driving through the Virginia countryside recently, headed home from a visit to Hampden-Sydney College -- I saw a roadside marker headed "Paul Carrington."  Of course I stopped my car and went out to take a picture of it.   It's in Wylliesburg, Virginia.  Ever heard of it?  I didn't think so.  

The earlier Paul Carrington was a member of the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals; he also had a house at Mulberry Hill, which I know understand is part of a state park.  Perhaps I'll look for something from the earlier Paul Carrington to cite in University, Court, and Slave, so I have two of them in one place.

Comments

[Michael Ariens]

His father Paul D. Carrington was a well known and influential Dallas, Texas lawyer whose work on the Texas corporations statute of the 1950s reverberates even today. He was an icon of the Dallas bar for over 50 years (and wrote a privately printed memoir).

[Alfred Brophy]

Thanks for that additional information, Michael. Maybe I should title this post the "Three Paul Carringtons"!