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Posted by: Nathan Dorn
As we approach the last day of the spooky season, I find myself rereading Robert Kirk’s 17th-century classic of fairy lore, The Secret Commonwealth. This book describes what people in Kirk’s time and community believed fairies were, where and how they lived, what they were able to do, and how they interacted with human beings. …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Last September, I published a post on this blog about Chancellor James Kent in which I wrote about Chancellor Kent’s role in promoting the professionalization of court reporting in America. In this post, I thought I would expand on the subject of legal research in early America by highlighting the first American author to publish …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
Nathan discusses Joshua Montefiore, the first Jewish person to publish a law book in the United States.
Posted in: Collections, Jewish American History
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
In recent posts on this blog, I have written about the evidence used in 17th-century witch trials, both in America and in England. In those posts, I pointed out that proving the crime of witchcraft was no simple matter. Rules for evidence in criminal trials were not yet formalized at that time, and opinions about …
Posted in: Collections
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