The Ultimate Appellate Practice Bookworm

Google Print has made a number of improvements.  Namely: 1) its “in-line” reader is nicer; and 2) the button which allows you to download, and hence, print books now works for most books. Anyway, here are some nice finds for the appellate practitioner.  They are all “full view” books.  Most of them seem to be from the Harvard Law School library. Some of them are practical, especially if you need to know the state of the law in the 19th century of what the common law of something is (so you can show abrogation.)  Some of them are good reading, so you can sound like a pretentious upper-class twit and/or make better legal arguments regarding the common law. There are now, many, many books in this virtual library, so this is just a sample:

• Benjamin Vaughan Abbott, Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence (1879)
• Andrew Jackson Baker, Annotated Constitution of the United States (1891)
• Henry Baldwin, A General View of the Origin and Nature of the Constitution and Government of the United States (1837)
• Simeon Eben Baldwin, The American Judiciary (1905)
• Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Of Judicial Evidence, Specially Applied to English Practice  (1927)
• Thomas Blount, Glossographia Anglicana Nova (1707)
• Richard Rogers Bowker, Copyright, Its History and Its Law: its history and its law (1827)
• Emile Gaston Boutmy, Albert Venn Dicey, E. M. Dicey, Studies in constitutional law: France--England--United States (1891)
• Elmer De Witt Brothers, Medical Jurisprudence: A Statement Of The Law Of Forensic Medicine (1914)
• Francis Buller, Henry Bathurst Bathurst, An Introduction to the Law Relative to Trials at Nisi Prius (1788)
• John William Burgess, Civil War and the Constitution, 1859-1865 (1901)
• Hampton Lawrence Carson, The Supreme Court of the United States: Its History (1892)
• Charles Wallace Collins, 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 (1912)
• Thomas McIntyre Cooley, Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin, The General Principles of Constitutional Law in the United States of America (1898)
• Edward Samuel Corwin, The Doctrine of Judicial Review, Its Legal and Historical Basis (1914)
• George Clarke Cox, The Public Conscience: Social Judgments in Statute and Common Law (1922)
• Samuel Benjamin Crandall, Treaties, Their Making and Enforcement (1904)
  
• Cushman Kellogg Davis, The Law in Shakespeare (1884)
• Robert Desty, A Manual of Practice in the Courts of the United States (1893)
• John Hampden Dougherty, Power of Federal Judiciary Over Legislation (1912)
• Eaton Sylvester Drone, A Treatise on the Law of Property in Intellectual Productions in Great Britain and the United States (1879)
• Heinrich Brunner, William Hastie, The Sources of the Law of England: An Historical Introduction to the Study of English Law (1888)
• Charles Cheney Hyde, International Law Chiefly as Interpreted and Applied by the United States (1922)
  
• George Lewis Canfield, George Walton Dalzell, Jasper Yeates Brinton, The Law Of The Sea: A Manual Of The Principles Of Admiralty Law...(1921) [updated because Google was defaulting to copyrighted version]
• Robert Destry, A Manual of Practice in the Courts of the United States (1893)
• Edgar Swartwout Dudley, Military Law and the Procedure of Courts-martial (1907)
• Horace Edgar Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment (1908)
• Thomas Welburn Hughes, A Treatise on Criminal Law and Procedure (1879)
• James F. Johnston, The Suspending Power and the Writ of Habeas Corpus (1862)
• James Kent, Commentaries on American Law  (1840)
• Alexander Macomb, The Practice of Courts Martial (1841)
• Frederic William Maitland, Frederick Pollock, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I (1898)
• Frederic William Maitland, James Fairbanks Colby, A Sketch of English Legal History (1899)
• Frederic William Maitland, Select Pleas in Manorial and Other Seignorial Courts: Volume I. Reigns of Henry III. and Edward I (1889)
• Emlin McClain, Constitutional Law in the United States (1905)
• Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise (1905)
• John Ordronaux, Commentaries on the lunacy laws of New York: and on the judicial aspects of insanity at common law (1878)
  
• John Ordronaux, The Jurisprudence Of Medicine In Its Relations To The Law Of Contracts, Torts, And Evidence (1869)
  
• George Washington Paschal, The Constitution of the United States Defined and Carefully Annotated (1868)
  
• Frederick Pollock, The Expansion of the Common Law (1904)
• Frederick Pollock, The Genius of the Common Law (1912)
• Gilbert Thomas Stephenson, Race Distinctions in American Law (1910)  (This book displays a disgustingly racist view of the law.  But, I suspect that this is the way some lawyers thought at one point.)
• James Fitzjames Stephen, A Digest of the Law of Evidence (1877)
• Theodore Sedgwick, A Treatise on the Rules which Govern the Interpretation and Application of Statutory and Constitutional Law (1857)
• George Clarke Sellery, Lincoln's Suspension of Habeas Corpus as Viewed by Congress (1907)
  
• E. Fitch Smith, Commentaries on Statute and Constitutional Law and Statutory and Constitutional Construction (1848)
  
• Anthony Stokes, A View of the Constitution of the British Colonies in North America and the West Indies (1783)
  
• Harlan Fiske Stone, Law and Its Administration (1915)
• Horatio Robinson Storer, Franklin Fiske Heard, Criminal Abortion: Its Nature, Its Evidence, and Its Law (1868)
• Joseph Story, Melville Madison Bigelow, Commentaries on the Conflict of Laws, Foreign and Domestic (1901)
• Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1858)
• Joseph Story, Commentaries on Equity Pleadings: And the Incidents Thereof, According to the Practice of the Courts of Equity, of England and America (1844)
• James Bradley Thayer, A Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law (1898)
• Joel Tiffany, A Treatise on Government, and Constitutional Law: Being an Inquiry Into the Source and Limitation (1867)
• Charles Francis Trower, The Anomalous Condition Of English Jurisprudence Considered With Especial Reference To A Proposed Fusion Of Law And Equity (1851)
• Henry St. George Tucker, Limitations on the treaty-making power under the Constitution of the United States (1915)
• John Randolph Tucker, The Constitution of the United States (1899)
• United States Bureau of Rolls and Library, Documentary history of the Constitution of the United States of America, 1786-1870 (1905)
• United States War Dept, Manual for Courts-martial, Courts of Inquiry, and Retiring Boards, and of Other Procedure Under Military Law (1908)
• Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations: Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns (1797)
• Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations: Or, Principles of the Law of Nature (1883)
• Francis Wharton, Commentaries On Law Embracing Chapters On The Nature, The Source, And The History Of Law; On International Law, Public And Private; And On Constitutional And Statutory Law (1848)
• Edward Joseph White, Commentaries on the Law in Shakespeare: With Explanations of the Legal Terms Used in the Plays (1911)
• James Wilson; Thomas McKean, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States of America (1792)
• William Winthrop, Military Law (1886)
• Quincy Wright, The Enforcement of International Law Through Municipal Law in the United States (1916) [readable, but .pdf file seems to have disappeared]
• James Wylie, International Law (1911)

Comment: I notice that a lot of people have been coming to this page from sites aimed at non-lawyers. Please, please, I beg of you, do not think that these old books necessary represent the state of the law. Modern lawyers are generally only interested in these books for 1) historical interest; or 2) to make arguments that are based on a showing of a change in the law. It may well be that the law has not changed, but unless you have the facilities to thoroughly verify this, using the authorities contained in these books may do you more harm then good.

Comments

[JFC]

The first third or so of the race distinctions book is interesting reading. Apparently the legal concept of a suspect classification hadn't been invented yet. This paragraph amused me:

In 1900, a Reverend Mr. Upton delivered a temperance address near New Orleans. The reporters, desiring to be complimentary, referred to him as a "cultured gentleman." In the transmission of the dispatch by wire to the New Orleans paper, the phrase was, by mistake, changed to "colored gentleman." The Times-Democrat of that city, unwilling to refer to a member of the Negro race as a "colored gentleman," changed it to "Negro," and that was the word finally printed in the report. As soon as he learned of the mistake, the editor of the paper duly retracted and apologized. But Mr. Upton, not appeased, brought a suit for libel and recovered fifty dollars damages.

(Reminds me of the "back in the African-American" incident.)