 |
1. Collins,
Charles Wallace.
The Fourteenth Amendment and the States: A Study of the Operation
of the Restraint Clauses of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States. Boston: Little,
Brown, and Company, 1912. xxi, 220 pp. includes tables and diagrams.
Reprint available December, 2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN
1-58477-463-0. Cloth. $85.
* Collins
examines the origins of the amendment and the way its scope was
enlarged over time. He argues that it has failed to protect African-Americans,
and that its application in extra-racial matters has led to excessive
litigation and harmful restrictions on the states. “This book
is interesting throughout; but perhaps the most striking parts
are those in which the author gives the figures as to the number
of cases, their nature, and their geographical distribution.”:
Harvard Law Review 26:664-665.  
2. Holdsworth, William S., and
C.W. Vickers.
The Law of Succession, Testamentary and Intestate. Oxford:
B.H. Blackwell, 1899. xiv, 311 pp. Reprint available December, 2004
by the Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-471-1. Cloth. $125.
*
Intended as an introductory treatise for law students, this treatise
serves as an excellent introduction and a useful reference. And as
one would expect from a book co-written by Holdsworth [1871-1944],
it goes beyond the law of his day to analyze its historical
development. In addition to a valuable introductory chapter on the
history of succession, the authors enrich their discussion in the
main text with observations on the ways its principles developed
over time in response to particular conditions. Their functionalist
view, which owes much to Maitland’s example, enabled them to create
a sophisticated text that avoids the pitfalls of contemporary
formalistic and “scientific” treatises.
3. Hurst, James Willard.
The Legitimacy of the Business Corporation in the Law of the
United States, 1780-1970. Charlottesville: The University
Press of Virginia, 1970. xiii, 191 pp. Reprint available December,
2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-470-3. Cloth. $95.
* This
study, which is based on a series of lectures delivered at the
University of Virginia Law School, explores the development of
corporate law from the 1780s, a time when the special charter was
the only form of incorporation, to the 1960s, a time when
corporations were established exclusively through general
incorporation statutes. More than a chronicle, Hurst emphasizes how
legal institutions actively shaped the central traits of American
capitalism. Hurst [1910-1997] revitalized the field of American
legal history with The Growth of American Law (1950,
available as a Lawbook Exchange reprint) and helped establish the
study of law and American society in Law and Social Process in
United States History (1960). He had a particular interest in
the ways society and law influenced one another.
4. Karlen, Delmar. Appellate
Courts in the
United States and England.
Forewords by Lord Evershed and William J. Brennan, Jr. [New York]:
New York University Press, 1963. x, 180 pp. Reprint available
December, 2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-472-X.
Cloth. $60.
* Reprint
of a title from the Judicial Administration Series published
by the National Conference of Judicial Councils. Motivated by a
spirit of reform, a distinguished group of American and English
jurists studied the appellate courts of each other’s countries in
1961 and 1962 in order to find ideas they could use in their own.
They observed a number of courts, including the Appellate division
of the New York Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court, the
Court of Criminal Appeal and the Divisional Courts. Karlen
synthesizes their findings and describes the tribunals observed. His
final chapter compares and contrasts the appellate procedures of
each country.
5. Loeb, Isidor.
The Legal Property Relations of Married Parties: A Study in
Comparative Legislation. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1900. 197 pp. Reprint available December, 2004 by The Lawbook
Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-421-5. Cloth. $80.
* A title
in Columbia’s important series Studies in History, Economics and
Public Law, this monograph is based on a doctoral thesis in
jurisprudence written under the direction of E.R.A. Seligman and
Frederick Hicks. Using examples from late-nineteenth century
American and European legislation and codes, Loeb examines how
industrial capitalism, urbanization and new ideas about the status
of women and children during the late nineteenth century affected
the field of matrimonial property relations, one of the oldest and
most conservative areas of the law. His general observations are
followed by detailed sections on changes in the areas of marriage
and legal capacity, matrimonial property systems and the succession
of married parties.
6. Marsden, Reginald G.
A Treatise on the Law of Collisions at Sea, With an Appendix,
Containing Extracts from the Merchant Shipping Acts, The
International Regulations (of 1863 and 1880) for Preventing
Collisions at Sea, and Local Rules for the Same Purpose in Force in
the Thames, the Mersey, and Elsewhere. London: Stevens and
Sons, 1880. xxxii, 304 pp. Reprint available December, 2004 by The
Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-412-6. Cloth. $95.
* Reprint
of the first edition. This venerable work has gone through thirteen
editions to date, the last appearing in 2003. It offers a summary of
the law and cases relating to collisions between ships. A review of
the seventh edition notes that it holds a “permanent place...not
only as a legal text-book on a special subject, but as a work which
can be usefully referred to by laymen who are interested in shipping
matters.”: E.S.R., Law Quarterly Review 39:378-379.
7. Partridge, Eric, Compiler.
A Dictionary of the Underworld, British and American: Being
the Vocabularies of Crooks, Criminals, Racketeers, Beggars and
Tramps, Convicts, the Commercial Underworld, the Drug Traffic, the
White Slave Traffic, Spivs. New York: The Macmillan Company,
1950. xv, 804 pp. Reprint available December, 2004 by The Lawbook
Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-444-4. Cloth. $150.
* Reprint
of the second edition. One of the great lexicographers of the
twentieth century, Partridge compiled the Dictionary of Slang and
Unconventional English, Shakespeare’s Bawdy, A
Dictionary of Catch Phrases and other books. Thoroughly
engrossing, A Dictionary of the Underworld offers definitions
for such obscure terms and phrases as “witch-hazel man” (heroin
addict), “sarbot” (informer), “eason” (to tell) and “budge a beak”
(run away).
8. Rutledge,
Wiley. A
Declaration of Legal Faith. Lawrence: University of Kansas
Press, 1947. 197 pp. Reprint available December, 2004 by The Lawbook
Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-448-7. Cloth. $65.
* Justice
Rutledge [1894-1949] was the last of Franklin Roosevelt’s
appointments to the Supreme Court and a staunch defender of the New
Deal. In this book he states his faith in judicial and governmental
activism. He elaborates these principles in the second part, “The
Commerce Clause: A Chapter in Democratic Living,” which addresses
changing judicial interpretations of the Constitutional delegation
of power to regulate commerce. He concludes that the commerce
clause’s pre-eminence in the scheme of federation ensured the
adoption of the Constitution and preserved its success ever since.
9. Sulzberger,
Mayer. The
Ancient Hebrew Law of Homicide. Philadelphia: Julius H.
Greenstone, 1916. 160 pp. Reprint available December, 2004 by the
Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-465-7. Cloth. $80.
* A
compilation of five lectures, this work is notable for both its
breadth of learning and its cogency of argument. It is also an
impressive work of biblical exegesis. Ranging from the Am Haaretz”
to “The Polity of the Ancient Hebrews,” it places homicide in the
wider context of Jewish history, jurisprudence and government. An
especially useful feature is the detailed index of cited Biblical
passages. Sulzberger, a noted Philadelphia orator and
philanthropist, was elected judge of the Court of Common Pleas in
1895 and reelected in 1904.
10. Swisher, Carl
Brent.
Motivation and Political Technique in the
California Constitutional
Convention.
Claremont: Pomona College, 1930. [iv], 132 pp. Reprint available
December, 2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-403-7.
Cloth. $85.
* This
sophisticated study analyzes the social and political factors that
shaped California’s state constitution, which was enacted in 1879.
It also addresses a broader topic. As Swisher states in the preface,
he was drawn to his subject because it provided an excellent
opportunity to study “the motives which dominate men in determining
their activities when they act together with other men, and the
techniques which they use in making themselves effective.” Swisher
[1897-1968] was a professor of government at Columbia University and
a distinguished constitutional historian.
11. Warfield,
Ethelbert Dudley.
The
Kentucky Resolutions of 1798: An Historical Study.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons,
1887. ix, 203 pp. Reprint available December, 2004 by The Lawbook
Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 1-58477-437-1. Cloth. $75.
* The
Kentucky Resolutions anonymously authored by Thomas Jefferson
[1743-1826] were adopted by the Kentucky legislature in 1798.
Written to oppose the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, they
initiated a debate about the respective powers of the federal
government and states. The most remarkable claim advanced by the
resolutions was that states had the right to nullify federal
legislation. A key text for advocates of states’ rights, the
resolutions had a profound effect on the debates that led to the
Civil War. Dudley, a Kentucky attorney, provides a lively account of
their history. In contrast to other authors, which tend to focus of
Jefferson, Dudley emphasizes the central role played by John
Breckinridge, the leading member of the Kentucky House of
Representatives. Indeed, this book, which draws extensively on his
papers, remains the principal study of Breckinridge’s influence on
the resolutions.
12. Wiecek,
William M. The
Guarantee Clause of the
U.S. Constitution.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, [1972]. [xi], 324 pp. 182 pp.
Reprint available December, 2004 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.
1-58477-505-X. Cloth. $75.
* Wiecek,
Congdon Professor of Law and Professor of History at Syracuse
University, offers a comprehensive analysis of the origins and
development of the clause in Article IV, Section 4 that guarantees
a republican form of government to every state of the union. Chapters
are devoted to rebellions against state or national authority,
slavery, reconstruction and two pivotal cases: Luther v. Borden
(1849) and Baker v. Carr (1962).
|
|
