Definition
General character refers to the reputation a person holds within the community where they live or have lived — the collective estimation of their standing, conduct, and qualities formed by those who know them through ordinary community association. It is distinguished from specific acts or incidents bearing on character, and from the opinion of a single individual who knows the person personally.
In evidentiary law, general character functions as a category of proof. A witness testifying to another person's general character speaks not to what they personally observed the person do, but to what the community at large believes about that person. The witness is, in effect, reporting the community's verdict on a person's reputation.
General character may bear on different traits depending on the context: truthfulness in credibility disputes, peaceableness in assault or homicide cases, or moral character more broadly in civil proceedings involving reputation or fitness.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "General character" in ordinary English refers broadly to the overall nature, qualities, or distinguishing features of a person or thing — their typical way of behaving or the overall impression they make.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "Character" is defined as the peculiar qualities impressed by nature or habit on a person, which distinguish him from others; also, the estimate, reputation, or repute in which a person is held.
The legal meaning of general character narrows the common meaning in one important direction: legally, general character is specifically a community-level reputation, not a personal assessment. Where ordinary English permits one person to describe another's general character based on close acquaintance or direct observation, the legal concept requires a community-wide reputation. A close friend's personal opinion, however informed, is not general character in the legal sense.
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Common Confusion
General character is frequently confused with two related but distinct concepts:
Character versus specific acts: General character evidence concerns reputation or, in modern practice, opinion — not specific instances of conduct. A witness testifying to general character does not recount what the person did on a particular occasion; they report the community's overall assessment. Courts distinguish sharply between these modes of proof, and the rules governing their admissibility differ.
General character versus character in issue: When character is "in issue" — as in a defamation case where the plaintiff's reputation is itself the subject of litigation — it operates differently than when character is offered as circumstantial evidence of conduct. The term "general character" in older sources often appears in the second context, as a shorthand for reputation-based evidence offered to prove how a person likely behaved.
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Core Elements
For general character evidence to be admissible in its traditional form, courts and older treatises identify the following requirements:
1. Community nexus: The witness must have knowledge of the person's reputation in the relevant community — typically the community of residence or, in some formulations, any sufficiently established community of association.
2. Reputation, not personal opinion: The traditional rule restricts the witness to reporting what others say and think, not what the witness personally believes. Modern rules (notably Federal Rule of Evidence 405) have relaxed this by permitting opinion testimony alongside reputation testimony.
3. Relevant character trait: The character evidence must bear on a trait actually at issue — veracity for credibility purposes, peaceableness in violent crimes cases, and so on. General character as an undifferentiated virtue or vice is disfavored.
4. Foundation: The witness must establish a basis for knowing the person's community reputation — typically by showing they are a member of or familiar with the relevant community.
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Why It Matters in Research
The term "general character" is a period marker. It appears frequently in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American case law and treatises as the standard formulation for reputation-based character evidence. Researchers working in historical sources will encounter it as a near-synonym for "reputation" in the evidentiary sense, but should not assume the two terms were used with perfect consistency.
The most significant shift for researchers to track: under the Federal Rules of Evidence (effective 1975) and their state counterparts, the permitted methods of proving character expanded. FRE 405 allows proof by both reputation and opinion, collapsing some of the traditional distinction between general character (community reputation) and personal opinion. Older cases and treatises that sharply distinguish these will not map cleanly onto modern doctrine.
Bouvier's formulation — that general character is established by community members, and that a witness who travels to a party's former community to make inquiries will not be permitted to report the results — reflects a foundational concern about the authenticity of reputation evidence. That concern survives in modern doctrine but has been addressed through limiting instructions and cross-examination rather than categorical exclusion.
Researchers using Law Mind's encyclopedia entries on character evidence should read civpro_151 for the Rule 404(a) framework governing when character evidence is admissible at all, civpro_178 for the specific rules on using character to impeach witnesses, and criminal_209 for the intersection of character evidence with prior bad acts under FRE 404(b). General character evidence most commonly arises in the Rule 404(a) and 405 context; the 404(b) analysis involves specific acts, not reputation.
Jurisdictional divergence is a live research issue. Some states retain stricter versions of the community-reputation requirement and do not follow the federal expansion to opinion testimony. Others have modified the definition of "community" to include workplaces and professional associations, not just residential neighborhoods.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources are thin on this entry. Black's redirects to the general entry for CHARACTER. Burrill similarly directs the reader to CHARACTER without independent elaboration. Only Bouvier offers a substantive definition, and it is the most useful of the three: his formulation establishes the community-basis requirement and the limitation on out-of-community witnesses with a citation to 2 Wend. 351 (a New York Wendell reporter citation from the early nineteenth century).
Bouvier's definition captures the classical rule cleanly: general character is community-based reputation, and only community members are ordinarily competent to report it. The limitation on witnesses who go elsewhere to gather character information reflects the concern that such inquiries produce not genuine reputation but manufactured or secondhand impressions.
What the historical sources do not address: the modern expansion of the concept to include opinion testimony, the treatment of character in issue versus character as circumstantial evidence, and the Federal Rules framework that now governs most American courts. Researchers should treat Bouvier's entry as a reliable statement of the nineteenth-century rule and an incomplete guide to current doctrine.
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Jurisdictional Note
Federal courts follow FRE 405, which permits both reputation and opinion testimony to prove character. A number of states track this rule, but some retain the older reputation-only standard, making Bouvier's community-based formulation still operative law in those jurisdictions. Researchers should verify state evidence codes before assuming the federal framework applies.
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