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Posted by: Nathan Dorn
In a post last month, I highlighted a document that the Law Library acquired for its rare book collection: a sea letter signed by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in 1794 for the schooner Two Friends. In that post, I mentioned the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States. In this post, I …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
In recent posts, I have pointed out that while the Law Library’s rare books collection is in principle a collection of printed books, we sometimes have the good fortune to acquire unique documents created by important Americans in the course of their public careers. One example of these was a document signed by two 17th-century …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Since Abraham Lincoln‘s birthday is tomorrow we thought we might share some Lincoln-related resources, chief among them a document written in Lincoln’s hand that the Law Library recently acquired. The document is a complaint that Lincoln wrote when he was practicing law with Stephen Trigg Logan (1800-1880). Lincoln worked with Logan from 1841-1844, following his …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Last month on this blog, I highlighted a 15th-century manuscript that the Law Library recently acquired that contained work on the laws of war for knights in the Middle Ages. In this post, I would like to announce the acquisition of another new addition to the Law Library’s growing collection of medieval manuscripts, a 14th-century …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Today, December 15, is Bill of Rights Day, the 230th anniversary of the ratification of the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution. On this day in 1791, the Virginia General Assembly completed the ratification process for those amendments. Virginia’s ratification of the Bill of Rights fulfilled the requirement that federal constitutional amendments must …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Last year, to mark the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower Compact, I wrote a post on this blog about the Compact’s origins and legacy in early American history. In that post, I wrote that the Compact served as a place-holder to acknowledge that the colonists were operating outside the region of North America that their …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
A few months ago, I highlighted on this blog two medieval manuscripts that the Law Library recently acquired. In this post, I would like to announce the acquisition of another new addition to the Law Library’s growing collection of medieval manuscripts, a remarkable 15th-century manuscript of L’Arbre des Batailles (The Tree of Battles) by the …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Not long ago, I wrote a post on this blog about the use of spectral evidence in a criminal trial. Spectral evidence was testimony in which witnesses claimed that the accused appeared to them and did them harm in a dream or a vision. The Court of Oyez and Terminer that presided over the Salem …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Last September, I published a post on this blog about Joseph Story and the creation of Story’s Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, one of the most important legal publications of Antebellum America. This year, I thought I would continue along the same vein and highlight the Law Library’s holdings of items related …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library