750 



UNITED STATES (LITERATURE). 



dividual cases, which excited great interest, have 

 also been published separately, of which the most 

 remarkable are Burr's trial for high treason (1807), 

 and the Dartmouth college case, which, in 1819, 

 settled the question of legislative interference with 

 chartered rights. To these should be added some 

 works of a more general nature, which relate to the 

 laws of the United States, such as Elliott's Debates 

 of the Conventions on the Adoption of the Consti- 

 tution (4 vols., 8vo., 182730), the three first 

 volumes containing the proceedings of the Massa- 

 chusetts, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania and 

 North Carolina conventions ; the fourth, the jour- 

 nal of the federal convention, with the subsequent 

 acts of congress and decisions of the courts upon 

 constitutional points ; Sergeant's Constitutional 

 Law (1822); Rawle's View of the Constitution 

 (2d ed., Philad., 1829) ; Duponceau's Jurisdiction 

 of the Courts of the United States (Philad., 1824) ; 

 Kent's Commentaries on American Law (4 vols., 

 8vo., 18261830); and Story's Commentaries on 

 the Constitution (3 vols., 8vo., Boston, 1832). 

 These works, especially Wheaton's and Peters's Re- 

 ports, in which are the decisions of chief justice 

 Marshall, the Report of the Dartmouth college case, 

 and Kent's and Story's Commentaries, comprise a 

 body of sound, learned and able law, and give a 

 complete view of the principles and practice of the 

 federal courts, and of the constitutional law of the 

 country 2. In the second place, the separate states 

 have published their statutes; and the decisions of 

 the supreme courts of nearly all of them have also 

 been from time to time reported, making a large 

 mass of materials, of very unequal value, depending 

 on the degree of talent and learning assembled at 

 the bar and on the bench of each state. Considered 

 in this point of view, the state of New York has 

 produced Johnson's Cases and Reports (from 1799 

 to 1822), continued by Cowen ; Blake's Chancery 

 Practice (1818); Dunlop's Practice of the Supreme 

 Court (1821 and 1822); Duer and Paine's Prac- 

 tice: Massachusetts, Tyng's and Pickering's Re- 

 ports (from 1804) ; Adams's Essay on Feudal and 

 Canon Law (1784) ; Livermore on Principal and 

 Agent (181 1) ; Fessenden's Law of Patents (1822) ; 

 Phillips on Insurance (1824) ; Story's La w of Bail- 

 ments ( 1832) ; Dane's Abridgment of American Law 

 (6 vols., 1823 1829) ; American Jurist (since 

 1829) ; and Jackson On Real Actions (1828) : 

 Pennsylvania, the Reports of Dallas, Yeates, Bin- 

 ney, and Sergeant and Rawle (17991822) ; Hall's 

 Law Journal (6 vols.). Virginia has an excellent 

 edition of her Statutes by Henning, and Reports 

 by Henning and Munford, Wythe, Washington, 

 Call, and others. In New Jersey, Griffith's valu- 

 able Law Register appeared in 1822 (2 vols.). 

 Connecticut has Day's Reports (since 1802) ; Swift's 

 System of the Law (17956), and work On Evi- 

 dence (1810) : and South Carolina, Reports by Bay, 

 Desaussure, Nott and M'Cord, beginning 1783. In 

 Rhode Island, Angell's treatises on Tide Waters 

 and Water Courses should not be passed over. In 

 the Western States, the peculiar tenure of the lands, 

 which, more than any thing else, tends to modify 

 the character of a people, and the administration of 

 the law among them, has brought forth, particularly 

 in Kentucky, a bar of great acuteness and power ; 

 and in Louisiana, the siete partidas of the fourteenth 

 century" so far prevail as law, that it has been 

 necessary to reprint part of them, and the French 

 law is still oftener called in. (See Louisiana Code.*) 

 3. The last kind of law books published in the 



United States, which needs to be noticed, is Eng- 

 lish law books reprinted there, generally with note*, 

 to make them better suited to the particular wants 

 of the country. The number of these, both of re- 

 ports and treatises, is very great ; and it may, in 

 fact, be said, that the whole body of the English 

 law, as it appears from Westminster hall, is imme- 

 diately republished in America. Of those works 

 to which the notes have added the most value, may 

 be mentioned Tucker's Blackstone (1803) ; Condy's 

 Marshall on Insurance; Dunlop's Phillips on Evi- 

 dence; Story's Abbott on Shipping (1828); Met- 

 calfs editions of various works. From what has 

 been said, it is evident that the number of law 

 books published in the United States is very great. 

 The number of merely American books already ex- 

 ceeds seven hundred volumes, of which, however, 

 by far the greater part consists of statutes and re- 

 ports. The number of reprints is yet larger, and 

 the amount of both is constantly increasing. See 

 the articles in this Encyclopedia, Law, Legislation, 

 Codes, and also the articles Common Law and Courts 

 of Law. 



6. Medicine. The practice of the medical art in 

 the early period of the colonies, was much in the 

 hands of the clergy. Physicians, indeed, came out 

 among the first settlers, and were among the most 

 valuable of them, both in Virginia and Plymouth. 

 The first medical work published in America was 

 a Brief Guide in the Small-Pox and Measles, by the 

 reverend Thomas Thacher of Boston (1677); and 

 the first introduction of inoculation for the small- 

 pox, in 1721, was under the influence of the rever- 

 end Cotton Mather. It was, however, long before 

 medical books were freely published in the United 

 States, because it was necessarily long before medi- 

 cal schools and hospitals could furnish the needful 

 means of observation and instruction ; and, in the 

 mean time, the entire dependence of the country 

 for medical education and medical books was on 

 England and Scotland. Doctor Cadwallader, of 

 Philadelphia, doctor Tennent, of Virginia, and doc- 

 tor Lining, of South Carolina, published different 

 treatises on medical subjects, between 1740 and 

 1750; and from that period medical works have 

 not ceased to appear in considerable numbers. The 

 troubles of the revolution, indeed, for a time in- 

 terrupted them ; but the success of the medical 

 schools, established on the return of peace, brought 

 them forth again in still greater numbers. The 

 most prominent writer in the period immediately 

 succeeding the revolution, was doctor Benjamin 

 Rush of Philadelphia, well known both in Europe 

 and America, by his Medical Inquiries, his Obser- 

 vations on the Diseases of the Mind, his Lectures, 

 and other works, all of which bear marks of an 

 original and adventurous mind. Caspar Wistar 

 published a System of Anatomy, and doctor Darcy, 

 who died in 1818, at the age of thirty-five years, 

 Elements of Surgery, which are much valued ; 

 while, among contemporary authors in Philadelphia, 

 doctors Chapman and Dewees should be mentioned 

 with distinction. Doctor Warren (died in 1815), 

 who founded the medical school at Cambridge, and 

 with it the medical education of New England, and 

 doctor J. C. Warren, his son, and doctor Jackson, 

 all of Boston, doctor Edward Millar and doctor Ho- 

 sack, of New York (whose writings have been pub- 

 lished under the title of Medical Essays, New York, 



1824 1830, 3 vols.), with others, both in these 



, places and elsewhere, have been advantageously 

 | known at home and abroad, and hare placed the 



