ANTIQUARIAN LAW BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS

First American law books after independence

1781 – THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE SEVERAL INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA; THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE; THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION (published by Francis Bailey, by order of Congress)

1795 – A SYSTEM OF THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT (Zephaniah Swift) – the first American legal treatise

1795 – THE NEW VIRGINIA JUSTICE (William Waller Hening) – the first handbook for justices of the peace under new American law 

1795 – THE MASSACHUSETTS JUSTICE BEING A COLLECTION OF THE LAWS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS RELATIVE TO THE POWER OF JUSTICES OF THE PEACE (Samuel Freeman; published by Isaiah Thomas & Ebenezer Andrews)(coming soon)

1810 – A DIGEST OF THE LAW OF EVIDENCE, IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL CASES, AND A TREATISE ON BILLS OF EXCHANGE, AND PROMISSORY NOTES (Zephaniah Swift) – the first American treatise on evidence   

1810 – THE AMERICAN PLEADER AND LAWYER’S GUIDE IN COMMENCING, PROSECUTING, AND DEFENDING ACTION AT COMMON LAW, AND SUITS IN EQUITY (William Hening)(coming soon)

Early compilations of state statutes

1788 – THE PERPETUAL LAWS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS – from establishment of its Constitution to the First Session of the General Court in 1788 (Isaiah Thomas)

1801 – THE PERPETUAL LAWS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS – from establishment of its Constitution in the year 1780, to the end of the year 1800 with the Constitutions of the United States of America and the Commonwealth, prefixed  (Isaiah Thomas & E. T. Andrews)

1809 – A COLLECTION OF THE LAWS OF VIRGINIA (William Waller Hening) the first official compilation of the laws of Virginia, derived in part from Thomas Jefferson’s personal library

1829 – THE REVISED STATUTES OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK (John Duer, ‎Benjamin Franklin Butler, John C. Spencer)(the first formal codification of state statutes by a common law jurisdiction)

1830’s – THE STATUTES AT LARGE OF THE LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, edited under the authority of the Legislature (Thomas Cooper)

First compilations of the Laws of the United States

1789 – GEORGE WASHINGTON’S PERSONAL COPY OF THE CONSTITUTION AND ACTS OF THE FIRST CONGRESS

1796 – LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES in three volumes through the Fourth Congress, Published with Authority (compiled by Zephaniah Swift and published by Richard Folwell, Philadelphia) 

1797 – LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES, Published with Authority (printed by William Ross, Philadelphia) – coming soon

1789 – ACTS PASSED AT A CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA published with authority (Francis Childs and John Swaine, Philadelphia)

Miscellaneous

1789 – THE DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS IN THE FIRST CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES WITH APPENDIX – Containing Important State Papers and Public Documents, and all the laws of a Public Nature with a Copious Index, in two volumes (published by Gales and Seaton, 1834)