4 - “Benito Cereno”: Melville's Narrative of Repression

Summary

No other antebellum American writer treats legal issues with more complexity than Herman Melville. Part of that complexity can be measured by examining the role his father-in-law played in shaping American law. During his thirty years as chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Lemuel Shaw wrote approximately twenty-two hundred opinions. They included some of the most important in the formative era of American law. According to Professor Zachariah Chafee, “Probably no other state judge has so deeply influenced the development of commercial and constitutional law throughout the nation”. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., praised Shaw for his “appreciation of the requirements of the community” and declared that “few have lived who were his equals in their understanding of the grounds of public policy to which all laws must be ultimately referred”.

Shaw's connection with the Melville family began long before Herman married Elizabeth Knapp Shaw in 1847. In 1802, Shaw's pursuit of a career in law took him to Amherst, New Hampshire, where he studied in the office of David Everett, a friend of Fisher Ames and Robert Treat Paine, Jr. In Amherst Shaw fell in love with the daughter of Major Thomas Melvill, Herman's grandfather. Nancy Melvill died before the two could marry, but Shaw carried two love letters from her in his wallet for the rest of his life. Shaw was also best friends with her brother Allan and stayed in close contact with the Melvill family.