Legal History
The following resources are useful to research legal history:
- Legal Treatises 1800-1926 (Making of Modern Law Digital Archive) This link opens in a new window
Digital library of works from the 19th and early 20th centuries on British Commonwealth and American law. Includes treatises, casebooks, local practice manuals, books on legal form, works for lay readers, pamphlets, letters, and speeches.
- Legal Classics (Hein Online) This link opens in a new windowSearchable PDF versions of classic legal treatises on a wide variety of subjects.
- Making of Modern Law (Trials 1600-1926) This link opens in a new window
Searchable digital archive of trial transcripts, and popular and scholarly accounts of both famous and non-famous historic trials.
- Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources, 1620-1970 This link opens in a new window
Contains digitized and searchable copies of over 300 years of legal primary sources, such as early U.S. state codes, city charters, constitutional conventions and compilations, and other documents.
- Making Of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative, and International Law, 1600-1926 This link opens in a new window
Provides digital access to historical legal treatises and commentaries covering the law in a variety of foreign jurisdictions including Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, and Switzerland as well as international, comparative and religious (Canon, Jewish, and Islamic) law topics.
- U. S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs 1832-1978 (Making of Modern Law Digital Archive) This link opens in a new window
A fully searchable digital archive containing 150 years of U.S. SupremeCourt records and briefs. The record for a case may contain the following types of documents: motions, petitions, oral transcripts, transcripts of the trial record, applications for writ, appendices, letter briefs and jurisdictional statements.
- State Statutes: A Historical Archive (Hein Online) This link opens in a new windowThis collection includes more than 1,600 volumes and nearly 2,000,000 pages of historical superseded state statutes.
- LLMC Digital This link opens in a new windowElectronic database of historical legal materials is a work in progress. Over the next 5-7 years, this database will contain over 200,000 volumes of U.S. government documents, case reporters, statutes of the U.S. and selected foreign nations, the Congressional Record, the Congressional Globe and many other law materials. A rich source for legal history researchers.
- Proquest Congressional This link opens in a new windowIndexes publications of the U.S. Congress such as hearings 1824+ (including previously unpublished hearings: Senate 1824-1992 and House 1833-1982), committee reports, documents and prints. Material is available in microfiche and/or electronic. Essential tool for doing legislative history research. Includes Congressional Research Reports from 1916+, Bills & Laws 1789+, U.S. Serial Set from 1789+, Annals of Congress from 1789-1824, Register of Debates from 1824-1837, Congressional Globe from 1833-1873, and Congressional Record from 1873+. Also includes Executive Branch Documents 1789-1948 and Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations 1789+.
- Constitutions of the World from the late 18th Century to the Middle of the 19th Century Online This link opens in a new window
Presents a scholarly edition of all constitutions, amendments, and declarations of rights between 1776 and 1849 worldwide (1860 for the United States). Includes drafts, failed constitutions, and constitutions for sub-national bodies.
- Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution This link opens in a new window
- English Reports, Full Reprint 1220-1865 (Hein Online) This link opens in a new windowSearch or browse all 176 volumes of the English Reports, Full Reprint along with its \Index of Cases\ and \Index Chart.\ This collection encompasses the decisions of the English Courts prior to the commencement of the Law Reports in 1865.
- U.K. Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new windowIncludes the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers from 1715 to the present (with supplementary material back to 1688) and the House of Lords Papers from 1715-1910. Includes searchable full text and subject indexing. The Parliamentary Papers are an essential primary source for Britain, its colonies, and the wider world. They are the working documents of government for all areas of social, political, economic, and foreign policy. 1688+
- ACLU American Civil Liberties Union Papers 1912-1990 This link opens in a new window
Provides access to the more than 2 million documents contained in the records of the American Civil Liberties Union at the Mudd Manuscript library at Princeton University.
- AmendAmend is a fully searchable public archive of thousands of failed constitutional amendments, from joint resolutions of Congress to party platforms to thousands of petitions submitted to Congress by citizens, churches, and community organizations.
- Making of Modern Law: Landmark Records from the US Court of Appeals, 1891-1980 This link opens in a new window
Features millions of pages of briefs (appellants’, appellees’, reply, amicus), appendices, memoranda, petitions, transcripts, and more from the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the federal intermediate appellate court. More than presentations of legal issues, the valuable historical documents provide a review of legal history in the U.S. federal courts.
