Kristin A. Olbertson is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Alma College. She was previously a fellow at the Hurst Summer Institute.

1. Introduction; 2. A politer peace; 3. Sensibility; 4. Civility; 5. Credibility; 6. Cacophony; 7. Respectability; Bibliography; Index.

"You are a Liar; you are no more fit for a Justice than the Devil! You are a Justice of a Fiend!", shouted yeoman Bildad Fowler at Justice Eldad Taylor in December of 1772. Several of the "good People" of Hampshire County witnessed Fowler's vituperative outburst at Justice Taylor, much to the disrepute of his "Office and Authority," as Taylor reported the incident to the next sitting of the county's Court of General Sessions of the Peace. In his report to the court, Taylor repeated Fowler's abusive statements, "all which Expressions," he told his fellow justices, he "apprehends to be Violations of those Rules of Decency and good Manners that every one ought to observe towards [each] of his Majesty's Justices of the peace [and] inconsistent with the good behavior the said Bildad ought to have maintained"--