I was pleased to welcome about 30 freshmen from Yale's Directed Studies program to the Paskus-Danziger Rare Book Room on November 4. They were accompanied by three of the Directed Studies faculty: Edwin Duval (French), Paul Freedman (History), and Justin Zaremby (Yale College and Law '10).

Directed Studies provides an interdisciplinary study of Western civilization to 125 selected Yale freshmen via three year-long courses -- literature, philosophy, and historical & political thought -- that focus on the central texts of Western civilization.

We viewed several books and manuscripts from among the foundational texts of European and English law, and how these texts shaped and were shaped by legal education. From Europe there was a 13th-century compilation of the Institutes, Code, and Novels of Justinian, and a 14th-century manuscript of the Clementines from the Corpus Juris Canonici, which show the development of the gloss as an outgrowth of the law lectures at the university in Bologna. The Institutes themselves had been promulgated by the Roman emperor Justinian in the 6th century as a textbook for learning Roman law. Likewise for canon law, the Decretum of Gratian was not merely a compilation of papal legislation, but a tool for teaching canon law at Bologna. Early printed editions of Justinian's Institutes (1516) and the Liber Sextus (1514) show how the structure of text-and-gloss shaped the layout of early printed law books. Legal humanists later stripped away the medieval gloss, but an 18th-century scholar replaced the gloss with his own study notes in an interleaved copy of the Institutes.

University-trained jurists in Europe had to plow through every line of Justinian's texts or the Corpus Juris Canonici to earn their doctorates in law. In England, by contrast, lawyers did not study English common law in universities but at the Inns of Court, and they did not study foundation texts as the Europeans did. On view for the students was one of our two 13th-century manuscripts of Bracton, the text that tried to do for English law what Justinian's Institutes did for Roman law, but failed. Education in the common law was practice-based; students attended hearings in the royal courts and studied cases from the Year Books, the anonymous medieval case reports that focused on procedure rather than outcomes. The first text written for English law students was Littleton's Tenures, a little treatise on land law that ws reprinted over seventy times across four centuries. Sir Edward Coke's commentary on Littleton once again adapted the device of the gloss, with Coke's dense and learned notes almost swallowing up Littleton's original text. The copy of Coke on Littleton (1633) that the students viewed has additional layers of extensive manuscript notes, attributed to the English author Samuel Butler (1612-1680), author of a best-selling satire on the Puritans, Hudibras, and Butler's patron William de Longueville (1639-1721).

The book that revolutionized common-law legal education, especially for do-it-yourself'ers in the early United States, was Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, the first book to give a comprehensive overview of English law in prose that an educated layman could digest. On view for the students was the 1790 edition of the Commentaries printed in Worcester, Mass., by the pioneering American printer Isaiah Thomas, as well as a student notebook (New England?, 1810?), where the student's geography notes are followed by "Questions and Answers upon Law: Blackstone's Commentaries."

My thanks to Justin Zaremby for organizing this visit. The students enjoyed the chance to see the books up close and actually handle them. Let's do it again!

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

The following select bibliography includes the sources consulted in the preparation of this exhibit. The image is of the opening leaf of the Liber Assisarum, a collection of Year Book cases from the reign of Edward III (manuscript in Law French, ca. 1450).

English law reports

• Abbott, L. W. Law Reporting in England 1485-1585. London: Athlone Press, 1973.
• Baker, J. H. "Coke's note-books and the sources of his reports." Cambridge Law Journal 30:1 (Apr. 1972), 59-86.
• Baker, J. H. "Records, reports and the origins of case-law in England," in Judicial Records, Law Reports, and the Growth of Case Law (J. H. Baker, ed.; Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1989), 15-46.
• Bolland, William Craddock. A Manual of Year Book Studies. Cambridge [England]: University Press, 1925. [Reprinted Holmes Beach, Fla.: Wm. W. Gaunt & Sons, 1986.]
• Fox, John Charles. A Handbook of English Law Reports from the Last Quarter of the Eighteenth Century to the Year 1865, with Biographical Notes of Judges and Reporters. London : Butterworth & Co., 1913.
• Heard, Franklin Fiske. Curiosities of the Law Reporters. Boston: Lee & Shepard ; New York: Lee, Shepard, & Dillingham, 1871. [2nd ed.: Boston: Soule and Bugbee, 1881.]
• Luther, Peter. "The Year Books." Law Librarian 13:2 (Aug. 1982), 19-22.
• Matthews, Elizabeth W. Seventeenth Century English Law Reports in Folio: Description of Selected Imprints. Buffalo: W.S. Hein, 1986.
• Plucknett, T. F. T. "The genesis of Coke's Reports." Cornell Law Quarterly 27:2 (Feb. 1942), 190-213.
• Powell, Damian. "Coke in context: early modern legal observation and Sir Edward Coke's reports." Journal of Legal History 21:3 (Dec. 2000), 33-53.
• Stebbings, Chantal, ed. Law Reporting in Britain. London: Hambledon Press, 1995.
• Veeder, Van Vechten. "The English Reports, 1292-1865." Harvard Law Review 15:1 (May 1901), 1-25; 15:2 (June 1901), 109-117.
• Wallace, John William. The Reporters: Arranged and Characterized with Incidental Remarks. 4th ed. Boston: Soule & Bugbee, 1882. [Reprinted Buffalo, N.Y.: W.S. Hein, 1995.]

American law reports

• Aumann, Francis R. "American law reports: yesterday and today." Ohio State University Law Journal 4:3 (June 1938), 331-345.
• Briceland, A. V. "Ephraim Kirby: pioneer of American law reporting, 1789." American Journal of Legal History 16 (Oct. 1972), 297.
• Duffey, Denis P., Jr. "Genre and authority: the rise of case reporting in the early United States." Chicago-Kent Law Review 74:1 (Winter 1998), 263-275.
• Harrington, William G. “A brief history of computer-assisted legal research.” Law Library Journal 77:3 (1984-85), 543-556.
• Joyce, Craig. "The rise of the Supreme Court Reporter: an institutional perspective on Marshall Court ascendancy." Michigan Law Review 83:5 (Apr. 1985), 1291-1391.
• Joyce, Craig. "Wheaton v. Peters: the untold story of the early reporters." Yearbook (Supreme Court Historical Society) 1985, 35-92.
• LaPiana, William P. "Dusty books and living history: why all those old state reports really matter." Law Library Journal 81:1 (Winter 1989), 33-39.
• Surrency, Erwin C. "Law reports in the United States." American Journal of Legal History 25:1 (Jan. 1981), 48-66.
• Young, T. J., Jr. "Look at American law reporting in the 19th century." Law Library Journal 68 (Aug. 1975), 294-306.

General works

• Holdsworth, William Searle. A History of English Law. 17 vols. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1966-72.
• Langbein, John H., Renée Lettow Lerner, & Bruce P. Smith. History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions. Forthcoming 2009, Aspen Publishers.
• Simpson, A.W.B., ed. Biographical Dictionary of the Common Law. London: Butterworths, 1984.
  
• Woxland, Thomas A., & Patti J. Ogden. Landmarks in American Legal Publishing: An Exhibit Catalog. [St. Paul, Minn.?:] West Publishing Co., [1989?].

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

John B. West & Co., The Syllabi, vol. 1, no. 1 (Oct. 21, 1876; reprint ed.; St. Paul, Minn., 1991).

John B. West & Co., The Northwestern Reporter, vol. 1 (1st ed.; St. Paul, Minn., 1879).

After the Civil War, the number of cases being reported rose astronomically. However, these case reports were still very slow to reach print; delays of months or years were not uncommon. Select reports sometimes appeared in newspapers but, as they were aimed at the general public, these were not always accurate. In 1876, John B. West began publishing The Syllabi, a weekly newsletter aimed at practicing attorneys in his home state of Minnesota. Its goal was to "furnish the legal profession of the state, with prompt and reliable intelligence." It lasted for six months before evolving into book format, and then being renamed The Northwestern Reporter.

The Northwestern Reporter was the first of the National Reporter System case reporter series published by West Publishing Company. By 1887, eight years later, West reporters would cover every state jurisdiction. In addition to being timely and accurate, West reporters were the first to feature editorial enhancements such as summaries of court opinions. Although not present in this first volume, later volumes also incorporated Key Numbers from the new West Digest system.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Report of the Copy-Right Case of Wheaton v. Peters: Decided in the Supreme Court of the United States: with an Appendix, Containing the Acts of Congress Relating to Copy-Right (New York, 1834).

Henry Wheaton had been unofficial reporter of U.S. Supreme Court cases from 1816-1827. Although his Reports were considered comprehensive and accurate, they were also quite expensive, being swollen with Wheaton's lengthy annotations. When Richard Peters took the post of court reporter, he took it upon himself to condense the reports of his three predecessors and to sell these condensed volumes for a tidy sum. Wheaton promptly sued. In this landmark copyright case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for Peters and held that "no reporter has or can have any copyright" in the Court’s opinions.

Although not named, Peters is the likely publisher of this report. The dedication to Chief Justice Marshall, "due to your unequalled ability and usefulness; to the greatness of your character; the purity of your motives; and the kindness of your judicial deportment," has the ring of a grateful litigant.

This volume is part of the Walter Pforzheimer Collection of copyright law.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Alexander James Dallas (1759-1817), Reports of Cases Ruled and Adjudged in the Several Courts of the United States, and of Pennsylvania, Held at the Seat of the Federal Government, vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1798).

In 1790 (one year after Ephraim Kirby began publishing Connecticut reports), Alexander Dallas began publishing Pennsylvania reports. The same year, the U.S. Supreme Court began operating out of Philadelphia. Dallas included a few of those reports in the second volume of his reports, and so he is considered the first U.S. Supreme Court reporter. Dallas produced only four volumes of case reports and they were often derided for being incomplete, inaccurate, and tardy. The Supreme Court reports were at least five years old when they appeared. Shown here is the first page of Supreme Court reports, where the Court began to organize itself and adopt its first rules. It was not until the August Term, 1792, that the Court rendered its first substantive decision, in Georgia v. Brailsford (2 Dallas 402). After Dallas, the unofficial post of reporter to the Supreme Court was held in turn by William Cranch, Henry Wheaton, and Richard Peters.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

William Johnson (1769-1848), letter to John Wells Esq., (Albany, NY, October 23, 1819).

William Johnson was Chief Justice Kent’s handpicked successor to George Caines as official reporter for the New York Supreme Court. During his tenure, Johnson produced 20 volumes of Johnson's Reports, covering the period from 1806 to 1823. Johnson later added the post of Chancery Court reporter to his duties. Johnson's Chancery Reports, covering the years 1814-1823, were the only specialized American equity reports of their time, greatly contributing to their influence in other states.

In the letter displayed here, Johnson mentions the case of Percival v. Hickey, which he reported in vol. 18 of his New York Supreme Court reports, and discusses the tribulations of a reporter's work. The letter reads in full:

John Wells Esq.
Counsellor at Law
New York

Albany October 23rd 1819

My dear friend,
     The motion to bring on the case of Percival & Hickey was made today by Mr. Sedgwick, & accordingly I moved for the postponement of the arguments until the next term, which was granted. The plaintiff was here, & complained loudly of his Counsel Mr. E. [T.A. Emmet]. Mr. Strong forgot to send the points with the cases, which might have created a difficulty had the case been ordered on.
     The court have business, from the middle & northern Counties, sufficient to occupy them until Wednesday of next week. I hope to be able to leave here on that day, so as to have a short time in N.Y. before the Court of Errors.
     My Reports must fall greatly in arrears if so much of my time is passed in this place, of which every year, I become more & more tired.

     Yours truly,

     Wm. Johnson

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

George Caines (1771-1825), Cases Argued and Determined in the Court for the Trial of Impeachments and Correction of Errors, in the State of New-York (New York, 1805).

There was no formalized system of reporting in the U.S. until 1804, when both the New York and Massachusetts legislatures provided for official reporters with paid stipends. George Caines was appointed the first official law reporter for the New York Supreme Court. However, Chief Justice James Kent ousted Caines after only one year, complaining that "his work is too full of mistakes."

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Ephraim Kirby (1757-1804), Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Superior Court of The State Of Connecticut, from the Year 1785, to May 1788 (Litchfield, Conn., 1789).

Although American courts were producing a small number of written opinions after the Revolutionary War, those opinions failed to be collected or published in any systematic manner. Kirby's Reports, a collection of Connecticut Superior Court cases published in 1789, was the first volume of law reports published in America. Ephraim Kirby was educated at Yale University and practiced law in Litchfield, Connecticut before being appointed the first Superior Court Judge of the Mississippi Territory by President Jefferson.

This volume is from the library of Simeon E. Baldwin, the professor credited with saving the Yale Law School in the late 19th century. It previously belonged to his father, Roger Sherman Baldwin, one of the attorneys for the Amistad captives.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Case reports are a fundamental source for the study and practice of law in the Anglo-American common law system. "Landmarks in Law Reporting," the Spring 2009 exhibition from the Lillian Goldman Law Library's Rare Book Collection, illustrates the development of law reporting from the Middle Ages to modern times.

The exhibit begins with a manuscript collection of cases from the reign of Edward III, copied in about 1450. Also on display are first editions of the reports of Edmund Plowden (1571), considered the first modern-style reports) and Sir Edward Coke (1600), perhaps the most influential reports). Other "firsts" include the first American case reports (Ephraim Kirby's 1789 reports of Connecticut cases) and the first U.S. Supreme Court reports (Dallas' Reports, 1798).

Recurring themes in the exhibition include the gradual transformation from manuscript to print, the growth of legal publishing, the connections between law reporting and legal education, and the growing demands by lawyers for timely, well-organized reports.

The Rare Books Exhibition Gallery is located in the lower level of the Lillian Goldman Law Library (Level L2), directly in front of the Paskus-Danziger Rare Book Reading Room. For those unable to visit the exhibit in person, stay tuned to the following postings here on the Yale Law Library Rare Books Blog.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the following for their assistance and advice in the research and preparation of this exhibit:

• Morris L. Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Law, Yale Law School
• John H. Langbein, Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History, Yale Law School
• Sabrina Sondhi, Special Collections Librarian, Arthur W. Diamond Law Library, Columbia University

Additional help in mounting the exhibit came from Brian Mendez and Fred Shapiro (Lillian Goldman Law Library), Joanne Kittredge (Yale Law School), and Emma Molina Widener (University of New Haven).

"Landmarks of Law Reporting" is on display April through October 2009 in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

Image: Volume 2 of Alexander James Dallas, Reports of Cases Ruled and Adjudged in the Several Courts of the United States, and of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1798), containing the first reports of U.S. Supreme Court cases.

Here are a few of the highlights from our acquisitions in the past three months.

For our growing collection of illustrated law books:

• Quadruvium ecclesie (Paris, 1509) by Johann Hugonis de Sletstat (a.k.a. Johann Hug), considered the first text on German constitutional law; only one other copy in the U.S. (Robbins Collection). See the image at right.
  
• The first edition in German of Damhoudere’s Praxis rerum criminalium (Frankfurt, 1565), a standard work on the criminal law of northern Europe with woodcuts illustrating crimes and criminal procedure; the only U.S. copy.
• Juristische Ergötzlichkeiten vom Jungfrauen-Rechte (Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1715) bound with Juristische Ergötzlichkeiten vom Jung-Gesellen Rechte (Frankfurt & Leipzig, 1723), a pair of little books on law for young women and young men, respectively, with charming frontispieces; the only U.S. copies.
• Two standard works, Justinian’s Institutes (1516) and the Liber Sextus (1514) in lovely editions published by the Giunta family in Venice, with dozens of woodcut illustrations. They join an illustrated Giunta edition of the Decretals (1514) we acquired 60 years ago.
• Esdaile’s Temple Church Monuments (London, 1933) showing the tombs of Edmund Plowden and John Selden.
• Jesse Turner’s A Page from the English State Trials (1907?) extra-illustrated with 55 plates.
• Several 19th-century trials adorned with portraits of the accused and/or their victims.
• Fire on the Nunnery Grounds (2000), a graphic novel based on the the arson attack on the Ursuline Convent in Boston. We also obtained The Charlestown Convent: Its Destruction by a Mob, on the Night of August 11, 1834 (Boston, 1870), an account of the attack and the trials that followed.

We have acquired several law-related children’s books to join the Juvenile Jurisprudence Collection donated by Professor Morris L. Cohen, including:

• Jehoshaphat Aspin, The Constitution of England, or, Magna-Charta, Bill of Rights, Habeas Corpus, and All the Other Laws of England: Familiarly Explained for the Instruction of Youth; Illustrated with an Analytical Chart of the Government of Great Britain, Elegantly Coloured (London, 1810).
• Cruel Jim: and Other Stories (Philadelphia, 1869), a cautionary tale of how cruel children grow into career criminals.
• The Tragi-comic History of the Burial of Cock Robin: with The Lamentation of Jenny Wren; The Sparrow's Apprehension; and The Cuckoo's Punishment (Philadelphia, 1811); printed by John Bouvier, author of the first American law dictionary.

The American Trials Collection grew by 28 titles, including:

• Several trials featuring female victims: The Authentic Life of Mrs. Mary Ann Bickford (Boston, 1846); Lizzie Nutt's Sad Experience (Philadelphia, 1886), Myron Buel, the Murderer of Catharine Mary Richards (Binghamton, NY, 1879), Poor Mary Pomeroy! (Philadelphia, 1874), Trial for Libel: Susanna Torrey, Plaintiff (Fayetteville, VT, 1835), Confession of John Joyce: Who Was Executed on Monday, the 14th of March 1808, for the Murder of Mrs. Sarah Cross, with an Address to the Public and People of Colour (Philadelphia, 1808).
• A Report of the Trial, of James Sylvanus M'Clean (Philadelphia, 1812), an early use of the insanity plea, involving an extortion attempt against Stephen Girard, the wealthiest American of his time.
• More murder trials: Cluverius: My Life, Trial and Conviction (Richmond, 1887); Report of the Trial of Dominic Daley and James Halligan for the Murder of Marcus Lyon (Northampton, MA, 1806); Confession of Jesse Strang (Albany, 1827); Report of the Trials of the Murderers of Richard Jennings (Newburgh, NY, 1819); Trial of John Schild (1813).
• And... a small collection of manuscript court documents and transcripts relating to the trial of William Fitzgerald, accused of murdering a Shawnee Indian in Indiana Territory in 1802.

Additions to our William Blackstone Collection included:

• Blackstone’s Letter to the author of The Question stated (London, 1769), his contribution to the debate over the John Wilkes election.
• Outlines of the Jurisdiction of All the Courts in England and Wales by R. Maugham (London, 1838), a work closely tied to the Commentaries.
• The first edition of The Comic Blackstone (London, 1844-46) in two parts.

And a few odds & ends:

• The first edition of Edmund Plowden’s Commentaries (London, 1571), the first and for centuries the finest of the nominative reports.
• Statuti della Honoranda università de mercatanti ... di Bologna (1550), with a vellum musical manuscript used in the binding; the only U.S. copy.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

Our Lewis Morris Collection is now part of the Libraries of Early America project on LibraryThing.com. As described by Jeremy Dibbell of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the coordinator of the Libraries of Early America Project, "Using the book-cataloging website LibraryThing.com, scholars from institutions around the country (including Monticello, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Athenaeum, the Boston Public Library, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the American Philosophical Society and others) have begun the process of creating digital catalogs of early American book collections - the project covers anyone who lived in America and collected primarily before 1825."

LibraryThing provides powerful tools for analyzing Morris's library. The tag cloug, drawn from the subject headings in our catalog records, shows the subject strengths within the Morris Collection. You can also see how Morris's library compares with other libraries, both early and modern. In addition, there is a biographical sketch and portrait of Morris.

Lewis Morris III (1726-1798), a 1746 graduate of Yale, was a prominent New York lawyer and statesman and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His law library, consisting of 113 titles in 104 volumes, was donated to the Yale Law Library in 1960 by three of Lewis Morris' descendents: A. Newbold Morris (Yale Law School Class of 1928), Stephanus Van Cortlandt Morris, and George L. Kingsland Morris. Over half the books in the collection are also inscribed by Morris' grandfather, Lewis Morris I (1671-1746), who was chief justice of New York (1715-1733) and governor of New Jersey (1738-1746).

Libraries of Early America will soon add another of our collections, the John Worthington Collection. Worthington (1719-1800) was a wealthy and influential lawyer practicing in 18th-century Springfield, Mass., who served for many years as king's attorney of western Massachusetts and high sheriff of Hampshire County.

Thanks to Jeremy Dibbell and his Libraries of Early America collaborators!

Links:

• Lewis Morris Collection, Libraries of Early America.
• Libraries of Early America project, LibraryThing.com.
• Biographies of Lewis Morris III from the National Park Service and Wikipedia.
• Biographies of Lewis Morris I from Wikipedia, and in the Guide to the Lewis Morris Papers, New Jersey Historical Society. See also Eugene R. Sheridan, Lewis Morris, 1671-1746: A Study in Early American Politics (Syracuse University Press, 1981).

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

To ring in the New Year, I'd like to acknowledge the outstanding gifts to the Lillian Goldman Law Library's Rare Book Collection in 2008.

I begin with a superb letter written by the great Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Marshall, in April 1835 (only a few months before Marshall's death), to James Kirke Paulding, whose Life of Washington was published later that year. In the letter Marshall recounts how George Washington convinced him to begin his career in public service 37 years earlier. The letter is a gift from Charles J. Tanenbaum (LL.B. Yale 1937).

At right is an image of the last page with Marshall's autograph; below is a transcription of the entire letter (postmarked Richmond, Virginia, April 4), followed by a list of resources.

J. K. Paulding esquire
New York

Sir

Your favor of the 22d of March was received in the course of the mail, but I have been confined to my room, and am only now resuming my pen.

The single difficulty I feel in complying with your request arises from my repugnance to any thing which may be construed into an evidence of that paltry vanity which, if I know myself forms no part of any character. To detail any conversation which might seem to intimate that General Washington considered my engaging in the political transactions of the United States an object of sufficient consequence to induce him to take an interest in effecting it, may look like boasting that I held a more favorable place in the opinion of that great man than the fact would justify. I do not however think that this, perhaps, fastidious feeling would justify a refusal to answer an enquiry made in terms entitled to my sincere acknowledgements.

All who were then old enough to notice the public affairs of the United states, recollect the arduous struggle of 1798 and 1799. General Washington, it is well known, took a deep interest in it. He believed that the real independence, the practical self government of our country, depended greatly on its issue[?] on our resisting the encroachments of France.

I had devoted myself to my profession, and, though actively and zealously engaged in support of the measures of his administration in the legislature of Virginia, had uniformly declined any situation which might withdraw me from the bar. In 1798 I was very strongly pressed by the federalists to become a candidate for Congress, and the gentleman of that party who had offered himself to the district [*], proposed to resign his pretensions in my favor. I had however positively refused to accede to the proposition, and believed that I could not be induced to change my determination. In this state of things, in August or September 1798 as well as I recollect, I received an invitation from General Washington to accompany his nephew, the late Judge Washington on a visit to Mount Vernon. I accepted this invitation and remained at Mount Vernon four or five days. During this time the walk and conversation in the Piazza mentioned by W. Lewis took place.

General Washington urged the importance of the crisis, expressed his decided conviction that every man who could contribute to the success of sound opinions was required by the most sacred duty to offer his services to the public and pressed me to come into the Congress of the ensuing year.

After the very natural declaration of distrust in my ability to do any good, I told him that I had made large pecuniary engagements which required close attention to my profession, and which would distress me should the emoluments derived from it be abandoned. I also mentioned the assurance I had given to the gentleman then a candidate, which I could not honorably violate.

He thought that gentleman would still willingly withdraw in my favor, and that my becoming a member of Congress for the present, would not sacrifice my practice as a lawyer. At any rate the sacrifice might be temporary.

After continuing the conversation for sometime, he directed my attention to his own conduct. He had withdrawn from office with a declaration of his determination never again, under any circumstances, to enter public life. No man could be more sincere in making that declaration, nor could any man feel stronger motives for adhering to it. No man could make a stronger sacrifice than he did in breaking a resolution thus publicly made, and which he had believed to be unalterable. Yet I saw him, in opposition to his public declaration, in opposition to his private feelings, consenting under a sense of duty, to surrender the sweets of retirement, and again to enter the most arduous and perilous station which an individual could fill.

My resolution yielded to this representation after remarking that the obligation which had controuled[?] his course was essentially different from that which bound me - that no other man could fill the place to which his country had called him, whereas my services could weigh but little in the political balance, I consented to become a candidate, and have continued, ever since my election, in public life.

This letter is intended to be private, and you will readily perceive the unfitness of making it public. It is written because it has been requested in polite and obliging terms, and because I am willing, should your own views induce you to mention the fact derived from W. Lewis, to give you the assurance of its truth.

With my great respect I am Sir
your obed.t serv.t

J Marshall

• Three English law reports in our Rare Book Collections bear Marshall's inscriptions and marginal notes: Hobart's Reports (London, 5th ed. 1724), Strange's Reports (London, 1755), and Vernon's Chancery Reports (London, 1726-1728). We also have vol. 1 of the abridged edition of Marshall's Life of George Washington (Philadelphia, 1832), inscribed by Marshall to his fellow Supreme Court Justice Smith Thompson.
• James Kirke Paulding (1778-1860) was a prominent early American author who later served as Secretary of the Navy. See his biographical sketch in Wikipedia. There are several biographies of Paulding, the most recent being Ralph M. Aderman & Wayne R. Kime, Advocate for America: The Life of James Kirke Paulding (Susquehanna University Press, 2003).
• The 1848 Aberdeen edition of Paulding's Life of Washington is available in Google Books; a brief mention of Marshall's meeting with Washington (without using Marshall's name) is on pages 260-261.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

The sesquicentennial of the infamous Dred Scott decision was marked in 2007. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that slaves were property and not citizens; they could not bring suit in federal court; and because slaves were private property, the federal government could not revoke a slave owner's right to own a slave based on where he lived. The decision threatened to open U.S. territories to slavery, and was one of the preludes to the Civil War.

The decision itself was published in several editions, and is widely accessible. It generated a large amount of pamphlet literature, which is not so accessible. An example from the Yale Law Library's Rare Book Collection is A Legal Review of the Case of Dred Scott, by John Lowell and Horace Gray. (In 1881 Gray became a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and in 1898 authored a decision that a child born in United States to foreign parents is automatically a citizen of the United States.)

Our copy is inscribed, "Hon. Roger S. Baldwin with the authors' compliments." Roger Sherman Baldwin (Yale 1845) served Connecticut as governor and U.S. Senator, and was one of the attorneys who defended the African captives in the Amistad case. It was one of thousands of volumes donated to the Yale Law Library by his son, Simeon E. Baldwin (Yale 1861), one of the most outstanding professors in the history of the Yale Law School. The inscription illustrates how pamphlets like this one were part of the information networks among anti-slavery lawyers and activists.

For more information, see the Wikipedia articles on Roger Sherman Baldwin and Simeon E. Baldwin, and the accompanying links. There are a number of excellent websites on the Dred Scott decision. An excellent starting place is the Library of Congress Web Guide on Dred Scott v. Sandford.

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian

Robert F. Blomquist surveyed 426 law professors who have taught legal history for his paper, Thinking About Law and Creativity: On the 100 Most Creative Moments in American Law (Valparaiso University Legal Studies Research Paper No. 08-04, May 2008). Below I've extracted the books and articles that appear in Blomquist's top 100. I provide links for those books that are in the Yale Law Library's online catalog, MORRIS. Legislation and court cases make up the majority of the list, and I did not include these, although arguably The Federalist (1788) is a component of the #1 creative moment, "The Constitution of the United States (1787) and the ratification debates (1787-1788)."

You can find a brief critique of Blomquist's paper on Mary Dudziak's Legal History Blog.

Most Creative Books in American Law...

15. James Kent, Commentaries on American Law (1826-30).
16. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833).
17. Christopher Columbus Langdell’s initiation of the case method of study at Harvard Law School initiated by his casebook, A Selection of Cases on the Law of Contracts (1871).
18. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law (1881).
27. Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921).
43. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962).
44. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (1949).
46. Charles Reich, The Greening of America (1970).
54. Richard Posner, Economic Analysis of Law (1973).
55. Hart & Sacks, The Legal Process (1958).
68. Al Gore, Earth in the Balance (1992) and An Inconvenient Truth (2006).
79. The Politics of Law (1982).

Most Creative Law Review Articles in American Law...

45. Justice Douglas’ dissent in Sierra Club v. Morton (1972) (citing Christopher D. Stone, Should Trees Have Standing?--Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects, 45 Southern California Law Review 450 (1972).
75. Samuel D. Warren & Louis D. Brandeis, Right to Privacy, 4 Harvard Law Review 193 (1890).

MIKE WIDENER
Rare Book Librarian