1815-1850: Law and Justice: Publications

Joseph K. Angell, Watercourses (Boston: Little, Brown, 1824)—oft-cited guide to the law governing the key source of power for the early Industrial Revolution;

Angell and Samuel Ames, A Treatise on the Law of Private Corporations Aggregate (Boston: Little & J. Brown, 1832)—the first American treatise on corporate law;

Henry Baldwin, A General View of the Origin and Nature of the Constitution and Government of the United States (Philadelphia: J. C. Clark, 1837)—a rambling rebuttal to Joseph Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution (1833) by a colleague on the Supreme Court;

Nathan Dane, A General Abridgement and Digest of American Law, nine volumes (Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, 1823–1829)—a compendium rather than a systematic treatise; its earnings enabled the author to endow the Harvard Law School professorship held by Joseph Story;

Dorothea Dix, Remarks on Prisons and Prison Discipline (Boston: Printed by Munroe &Francis, 1845)—a survey of state penitentiaries and local prisons, combined with an argument in support of the Pennsylvania system of penal management;

James Gould, A Treatise on the Principles of Pleading in Civil Actions (New York, 1832)—a manual for practitioners by a professor at the Litchfield Law School;

Simon Greenleaf, Treatise on the Law of Evidence (Boston: C. C. Little &J. Brown, 1846–1856)—the standard synthesis of the subject;

Francis Hilliard, Elements of Law (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, 1835)—an overview of the law by a Boston lawyer who would later write the first treatise on torts;

David Hoffman, A Course of Legal Study (Baltimore: Published by Coate & Maxwell, 1817)—a series of lectures by a Baltimore attorney chosen by the University of Maryland to organize a law school;

James Kent, Commentaries on American Law, four volumes (New York: O. Halsted, 1826–1830)—as a worthy counterpart to William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769), it signified the maturity of American legal writing;

Edward Livingston, System of Penal Laws for the United States of America (Washington, D.C.: Gales & Seaton, 1828)—although neither the Louisiana legislature nor the Congress chose to adopt it, this exposition of current thought on crime and punishment was influential throughout the world;

James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 (Washington, D.C.: Taylor & Maury, 1840)—published after Madison’s death, the notes provided the first substantial information about the convention and contributed to the reinterpretation of the Constitution;

Edward Mansfield, The Legal Rights, Liabilities, and Duties of Women (Salem, Mass.: J. P. Jewett, 1845)—a survey of the state of the law on the eve of the woman’s rights movement;

John Belton O’Neall, Negro Law of South Carolina (Columbia, S.C.: Printed by J. G. Bowman, 1848)—the law of race relations in the jurisdiction most firmly committed to slavery;

Wendell Phillips, ed., The Constitution, a Pro-Slavery Compact, or Selections from the Madison Papers (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1844)—an abolitionist interpretation of the Constitution as “a covenant with death”;

Robert Rantoul Jr., Oration at Scituate (Boston, 1836)—one of the most powerful appeals for codification of the law;

Tapping Reeve, Law of Baron and Femme (New Haven: Printed by Oliver Steele, 1816)—the first American treatise on the law of domestic relations;

Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, three volumes (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, 1833)—one of Story’s many Commentaries, this became one of the most influential works in the entire literature of American law;

William Wetmore Story, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts Not Under Seal (Boston: C. C. Little & J. Brown, 1844)—written by the son of Joseph Story, this remained a standard reference long after the author had abandoned his father’s footsteps to live in Rome as a sculptor;

St. George Tucker, Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia (Richmond, 1831)—the annotator of the most important American edition of Blackstone turns his attention to the laws of his home state;

Tucker, Lectures on Constitutional Law (Washington, D.C., 1043)—a rebuttal to Joseph Story’s Commentaries (1833) by one of the foremost legal thinkers in the South;

Gulian Verplanck, An Essay on the Doctrine of Contracts: Being An Inquiry How Contracts Are Affected in Law and Morals (New York: G. & C. Carvill, 1825)—an attack on the doctrine of caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) that more broadly addresses the ethical structure of contract law;

Timothy Walker, Introduction to American Law (Philadelphia: P. H. Nicklin & T. Johnson, 1837)—a guide for students by one of the leading legal educators of the period;

Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law (London: B. Fellowes, 1836)—a treatise by the reporter of Supreme Court opinions from 1815 to 1827.