St. George Tucker's Law Reports and Selected Papers, 1782-1825

“Carefully compiled and authoritatively annotated volumes of St. George Tucker’s Law Reports and Selected Papers, 1782-1825 are gathered from rare documents and thirty-five remarkable notebooks prepared by a principal early American attorney, judge, and legal scholar.” — Colonial Williamsburg

“Hobson’s skillfully edited volumes are required purchase for university libraries and will quickly become a common reference for scholars.” — Journal of American History

“St. George Tucker belongs with James Kent as one of the most important and influential legal thinkers of the post-Revolutionary era. His reports provide crucial insight into the legal debates shaping major ideological issues such as slavery, crime and punishment, debt regulation, the power between church and state, judicial review, and the common law in the new nation. Through the lens of a deeply divided court, we see these abstract intellectual questions made concrete in legal decisions affecting actual people. This is a real gift.” — Holly Brewer, University of Maryland

“St. George Tucker was a towering figure among lawyers and judges of the early republic. His papers offer a comprehensive picture of law in Virginia across forty years, from the technical minutiae of procedure to broader questions of inheritance, contract, debt, land title, crime, and more, including whether a person was slave or free. This superbly executed edition will be an essential resource for anyone interested in the development of American law in a crucial period of its history.” — Bruce H. Mann, Harvard Law School