The Spirit of the Law in Newman’s Apologia

Abstract

Argues that in order to repudiate Kingsley’s charge that he was a liar, Newman had to overcome what he called “the bias of the court,” the common Protestant assumption that Catholicism itself was not only duplicitous, but also unpatriotic. Analyzes Newman’s shrewd jurisdictional defense in the Apologia: his rhetoric on the one hand assuages Protestant fears that popery threatens English sovereignty, and on the other appeals to the jury of his countrymen by invoking the higher, nonsectarian jurisdiction of equity.