Humbug: Toward a Legal History

This article traces the legal history of fraud through the concept of humbug, examining how courts grappled with regulating deception in nineteenth-century America. Drawing on Lord Hardwicke's observation that fraud is infinite and courts cannot foresee all schemes, Blumenthal explores legal doctrines surrounding fraudulent conduct. The article references P.T. Barnum's elaborate deceptions and the legal system's response to con artists who inhabited the borderlands between legitimate entrepreneurship and criminal fraud. By examining the famous forgery trial of Charles B. Huntington, a Wall Street broker convicted in 1856, the article illustrates how judges, lawyers, and witnesses participated in spectacles that revealed tensions between legal principle and practical enforcement. Blumenthal argues that humbug and fraud law share indeterminacy and complexity that reflect broader nineteenth-century American attempts to regulate deception. The article places fraud within legal history's concern for how societies conceptualize and manage dishonest conduct.

Topics: Legal History · Contracts

Keywords: fraud · humbug · Lord Hardwicke · P.T. Barnum · forgery · legal doctrine · Charles Huntington