The Macomber Library includes non-fiction books for research, pleasure, and reference focusing on a wide range of mostly post-1000 A.D. Western history. The primary focus is on law and societal issues impacting the law, particularly the law about real property and the undergirding constitutional issues safeguarding private property rights. Hardcover is preferred, because durable books are easier to read, and store when not reading them. However, some books are only available in cloth. Books too fragile to be read are not included; because the Library’s primary purpose is to have readable books and not a showcase. The purpose of reading books published long ago is to gain perspectives only available from the time of their writing.

The Macomber Library does not favor mere commentary, but original writings of people who had an impact in their time, except for dated commentaries that provide substantive observation on the issues of the day, such as Blackstone’s Commentaries, or Story’s Commentaries on the U.S. Constitution.

The Macomber Library does not purchase facsimile editions, which are cheap copies of old pages (a recent abhorrent bookseller practice), because a book must be comprehensible in relatively modern English. For example, many of the Great Books from the Encyclopedia Britannica set of that name were translated from the original Greek or other language in the mid-1950s. These scholarly translations capture the content in modern English. Where properly done a fair translation is valuable.

Here is our acquisition list. It does not include every book to be acquired, but only the rarer ones. As each is procured, that title will be removed from the list.

If you are aware of any in a non-facsimile hardcover edition, please call Art Macomber at 208-618-8686, or email art@artmacomber.com.

The list is in alphabetical order by the author’s or editor’s last name.

Acquisition List for the Macomber Library as of September 10, 2021:

Adams, Henry, The Life of Albert Gallatin, Philadelphia (1879).

Adams, John, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States, Charles Francis Adams, Ed., 10 Vols., Little, Brown, Boston, (1856).

Adams, John Quincy, Writings, Worthington Chauncey Ford, Ed., 5 Vols., New York (1913-1915).

Adams, John Quincy, Memoirs, Charles Francis Adams, Ed., 12 Vols., Philadelphia (1874-1877).

Adams, Samuel, The Writings of Samuel Adams, Harry A. Cushing, Ed., 4 Vols., G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York (1904-1908).

Alan, Gardner Weld, A Naval History of the American Revolution, 2 Vols., Houghton, New York (1913).

Anburey, Thomas, Travels Through the Interior Parts of America, in a Series of Letters, by an Officer, 2 Vols., London (1789).

Austin, James T, The Life of Elbridge Gerry, with Contemporary Letters, 2 Vols., Boston (1828-1829).

Bacon, Matthew, A Treatise on Leases and Terms for Years, A. Strahan, London (1798).

Bailey, Francis, Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America, in 1796 and 1797, London (1856).

Baldwin, Henry, A General View of the Origin and Nature of the Constitution and Government of the United States, Deduced from the Political History and Condition of the Colonies and States, from 1774 until 1788, and the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, Together with Opinions in the Cases Decided at January Term, 1837, Arising on the Restraints on the Powers of the States, J. C. Clark, Philadelphia (1837), Reprinted The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. (2000).

Ballagh, J.C., The Letters of Richard Henry Lee, 2 Vols., MacMillan, New York (1911).

Bancroft, George, History of the Formation of the Constitution of the United States of America, 2 Vols., D. Appleton, New York (1883).

Barras, Paul Francois, Memoirs of Barras – Member of the Directorate, 4 Vols., Osgood Mcllvaine, London (1895).

Bentham, Jeremy, A Comment on the Commentaries: A Criticism of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England [1776], Charles Warren Everett, Ed., Oxford, Clarendon Press (1928).

Bentham Jeremy, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 Vols., John Bowring, Ed., William Tait, Edinburgh (1843).

Bishop, Joel Prentiss, Commentaries on the Law of Contracts Upon a New and Condensed Method, T.H. Flood & Co., Chicago, (1887).

Bishop, John Leander, A History of American Manufactures from 1608-1860, 3 Vols., Edward Young & Co., London (1861-1868).

Bracton’s Note Book, A Collection of Cases Decided in the King’s Courts During the Reign of Henry the Third, Annotated by a Lawyer of That Time, Seemingly by Henry of Bratton, 3 Vols., F.W. Maitland, Ed., C.J. Clay & Sons, Cambridge University Press Warehouse [etc.], London (1887).

Bradley, Joseph P., Law, it’s Nature and Office as the Bonding Basis of Civil Society, J.M.P. Wallace, Philadelphia (1884).

Broom, Herbert, A Selection of Legal Maxims, Classified and Illustrated, 8th Ed., T. & J.W. Johnson & Co., Philadelphia (1882).

Brotherton, J. & Meadows, W. (printed for, not by), The Dying Speeches and Behavior of the several State Prisoners That have been Executed the Last 300 Years. With Their Several Characters from the Best Historians, as Cambden, Spotswood, Clarendon, Sprat, Burnet, &c : and a Table Shewing How the Respective Sentences Were Executed, and Which of Them Were Mitigated or Pardon’d, London (1720).

Brown, Everett S., The Constitutional History of the Louisiana Purchase, 1803-1812, University of California Press, Berkeley (1920).

Bruce, Philip Alexander, Economic History of Virginia in the 17th Century, 2 Vols., New York (1896).

Bruchey, Stuart Weems, The Roots of American Economic Growth 1607-1861 – An Essay in Social Causation, Harper & Row, New York and Evanston (1965).

Bryce, James Viscount, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, 2 Vols., Oxford University Press, Oxford (1901).

Bunyan, John, The Complete Works of John Bunyan, Henry Stebbing, Ed., 4 Vols., Virtue & Yorston, London (1859).

Burke, Edmond, The Works of Edmund Burke, 2 Vols., Holdsworth and Ball, London (1834); or preferably . . .

Burke, Edmund, Works, with a Memoir, 3 Vols., New York (1849).

Burr, Aaron, see Memoirs at Davis, Matthew, supra.

Burr, Aaron, Private Journal: Reprinted in Full from the Original Manuscript in the Library of William Keeney Bixby of St. Louis, Missouri, 2 Vols., Rochester, (1903).

Burton, John H., Life and Correspondence of David Hume, 2 Vols., Edinburgh (1846).

Bury, J.P., A History of the Later Roman Empire From the Death of Theodosius to the Death of Justinian, 2 Vols., New York (1958).

Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 Vols. (1536), Philadelphia (1928).

Clark, Sir George, The Oxford History of England, 16 Vols., Oxford Clarendon Press, (1988).

Clay, Henry, The Papers of Henry Clay, 10 Vols. & Supp., James F. Hopkins, Ed., University of Kentucky Press, Lexington (1959).

Clay, Henry, The Works of Henry Clay, Comprising his Life, Correspondence and Speeches, 10 Vols., Calvin Colton, LL.D., Ed., N.Y. (1904).

Collins, Anthony, A Discourse of Free-Thinking, London (1713).

Corbin, Arthur L, Corbin on Contracts: A Comprehensive Treatise on the Rules of Contract Law, 7 Vols., West Publishing Co., St. Paul (1950-51).

Crabb, George, A History of English Law, or, An Attempt to Trace the Rise, Progress, and Successive Changes, of the Common Law: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Baldwin & Cradock, London (1829).

Cruise, William, Greenleaf, Simon, and White, Henry Hopley, A Digest of the Law of Real Property, C. C. Little & J. Brown, Boston (1849).

Curtis, Benjamin Robbins, Executive Power, Little & Brown, Boston (1862).

Curtis, Benjamin R., A Memoir of Benjamin Robbins Curtis, LL.D, with Some of His Professional and Miscellaneous Writings, Little, Brown & Company, Boston (1879).

Davis, Matthew Livingston, Memoirs of Aaron Burr, 2 Vols., New York (1838).

Dunning, William Archibald, The History of Political Theories: Ancient and Mediaeval, The MacMillan Co., New York (1902).

Dunning, William Archibald, The History of Political Theories: Luther to Montesquieu, The MacMillan Co., New York (1905).

Dwarris, Sir Fortunatus, A General Treatise on Statutes, Their Rules of Construction, and the Proper Boundaries of Legislation and of Judicial Interpretation, William Gould & Sons, Albany (1871).

Fearne, Charles, An Essay on the Learning of Contingent Remainders and Executory Devises, 10th Ed., 2 Vols., Saunders & Benning and Stevens & Norton, London, 1844 (1772).

Flanders, Henry, The Life and Times of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, 2 Vols., Philadelphia (1881).

Foxes-Bourne, H. R., Life of John Locke, 2 Vols., London (1876).

Frankfurter, Felix, The Commerce Clause Under Marshall, Taney, and Waite, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N.C. (1937).

Friedman, Milton R., Contracts and Conveyances of Real Property, Callahan & Co. (1954).

Gallatin, Albert, Writings of Albert Gallatin, Henry Adams, Ed., 3 Vols., Philadelphia (1879).

Garland, Hugh A., The Life of John Randolph of Roanoke, 2 Vols., D. Appleton & Co., New York (1851).

Glanvill, The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of England Commonly Called Glanvill, G. D. H. Hall, Ed. and Trans., Thomas Nelson, London (1965).

Godwin, William, Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, 2 Vols., London (1793).

Goebel, Julius, and Joseph H. Smith, The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton, 5 Vols., Columbia University Press, New York (1964-81).

Hamilton, Alexander, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, 12 Vols., G. P. Putnam’s Sons, N.Y. (1903).

Henry, William Wirt, Patrick Henry: Life, Correspondence and Speeches, 3 Vols., Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York (1891).

Hilldrup, Robert L., Life and Times of Edmund Pendleton, University of North Carolina Press (1939).

Hoar, R.S., Constitutional Conventions, Their Nature, Powers and Limitations, Boston (1917).

Holdsworth, Sir William S.; Goodhart, A.L., A History of English Law, 17 Vols, Methuen & Co., Ltd. and Sweet & Maxwell, London (1903).

Hopkins, Earl, Handbook on the Law of Real Property, West Publishing Co. (1896).

Hough, F.B., Constitutional Provisions in Regard to Education in the Several States of the American Union, Washington (1875).

Huebner, Timothy S., The Southern Judicial Tradition: State Judges and Sectional Distinctiveness, 1790-1890, University of Georgia Press (1999).

Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, Norton & Norton, Eds., Clarendon Press, 2007 (1740).

Hume, David, The Life of David Hume, Esq., W. Strahan, Ed., London (1777).

Hurd, John Codman, The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States, Brown, Little & Co., Boston (1858).

Hutchinson, Thomas, & Mayo, Lawrence S.,  The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay, 3 Vols., Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1936).

Iredell, James, The Papers of James Iredell, Don Higgenbotham, Ed., North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh (1976).

Iredell, James, Life and Correspondence of James Iredell, One of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, Griffith John McRee, Ed., 2 Vols., New York (1857).

Jay, John, Correspondence and Public Papers, Henry P. Johnston, Ed., 4 Vols., New York (1890).

Jefferson, Thomas, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 40 Vols., Julian Boyd, Ed., Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. (1952), and 9 Vols. (as of 2014), Thomas Jefferson Foundation (1999).

King, Rufus, Life and Correspondence, Charles R. King, Ed., 6 Vols., New York (1894).

Lanfrey, Pierre, The History of Napoleon the First, 4 Vols., London (1871-1879).

Lieber, Francis, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government, Theodore D. Woolsey, Ed., 3rd Ed., J.B. Lippincott & Co., London (1883).

Littleton, Thomas, Littleton’s Tenures, Eugene Wambaugh, Trans., John Byrne, Washington D.C. (1903).

Lodge, Henry Cabot, Life and Letters of George Cabot, Boston (1878).

Lyon, Hastings and Block, Herman, Edward Coke, Oracle of the Law, Houghton Mifflin (1929).

Madison, James, The Papers of James Madison, Congressional Series, Vols. 1-10, University of Chicago Press (1977), Volumes 11-17, University Press of Virginia (1991), Robt. A. Rutland, Ed.

Madison, James, The Writings of James Madison, Gaillard Hunt, Ed., 8 Vols., G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York (1900).

Marshall, John, A History of The Colonies Planted By The English On The Continent Of North America: From Their Settlement, To The Commencement Of That War Which Terminated In Their Independence, Abraham Small, Philadelphia (1824).

Mason, George, The Papers of George Mason, 1725-1792, 3 Vols., University of North Carolina Press (1970).

Matthews, Stanley, The Judicial Power of the United States in Some of its Aspects Particularly as Illustrating in its Exercise and Development the True Nature and Essential Characteristics of our Compound Form of Government, Hoggson and Robinson, New Haven, (1888).

McIlwain, Charles Howard, The Growth of Political Thought in the West, The Macmillan Co., (1932).

Miller, Samuel Freeman, The Constitution and the Supreme Court of the United States of America, D. Appleton & Company, New York (1899).

Morris, Gouverneur, Diary and Letters, Ann Cary Morris, Ed., 2 Vols., London (1889).

Monroe, James, Writings of, Stanislaus Murray Hamilton, Ed., 7 Vols., [unfinished work], New York (1898-1903).

Morison, Samuel Eliot, Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis, Federalist, 1765 -1848, 2 Vols., Boston (1913).

Newland, John, A Treatise on Contracts Within the Jurisdiction of Courts of Equity, William P. Farrand & Co., [City unknown] (1808).

North, Douglass C., The Economic Growth of the United States, 1790-1860, Prentice Hall, New Jersey (1965).

Norton, Thomas James, Losing Liberty Judicially – Prohibitory and Kindred Laws Examined, Macmillan Company, New York, (1928).

Novick, Shelton M, Ed., The Collected Papers of Justice Holmes: Complete Public Writings and Selected Judicial Opinions of Oliver Wendell Holmes, 3 Vols., University of Chicago Press, Chicago, (1995).

O’Brien, Michael, Conjectures of Order, Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860, 2 Vols., Univ. of North Carolina Press (2004). ISBN 978-0-8078-2800-7.

Paine, Thomas, Complete Writings of Thomas Paine, Philip S. Foner, Ed., 2 Vols., New York Citadel Press (1945).

Paxson, Frederic L., History of the American Frontier, 1763-1892, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston (1924).

Pendleton, Edmund, The Letters and Papers of Edmund Pendleton, 1734-1803, David John Mays, Ed., 2 Vols., University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville (1967).

Plucknett, Theodore, Statutes & Their Interpretation in The First Half of The Fourteenth Century, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2005 (1922).

Poor, Henry Varnum, History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States of America, Exhibiting Their Progress, Cost, John H. Schultz, New York (1860).

Pound, Roscoe, The Spirit of the Common Law, Charles Edward Merriam, Ed., Marshall Jones Co., Boston (1921).

Pound, Roscoe, Jurisprudence, 4 Vols., West Publishing Co., St. Paul (1959).

Robertson, John Mackinnon, Short History of Free Thought, 2 Vols., London (1914).

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Reveries of a Solitary Walker, London (1782).

Rowland, Kate Mason, The Life of George Mason, 1725 to 1792, including his Speeches, Public Papers, and Correspondence, 2 Vols., New York (1892).

Rutherforth, Thomas, Institutes of Natural Law, 2 Vols., William and Joseph Neal, Baltimore (1832).

Saye, Albert B., A Constitutional History of Georgia, 1732–1945, University of Georgia Press (1948).

Schofield, Henry, Essays on Constitutional Law and Equity and Other Subjects, 2 Vols., Chipman Law Publishing Co., Boston (1921).

Sedgwick, Theodore, and Pomeroy, John Norton, A Treatise on the Rules which Govern the Interpretation and Construction of Statutory and Constitutional Law, John S. Voorhees, New York (1857).

Sergeant, Thomas, Constitutional Law: Being a Collection of Points Arising Upon the Constitution and Jurisprudence of the United States, which Have Been Settled, by Judicial Decision and Practice, Abraham Small, Philadelphia (1822).

Simpson, A. W. B., History of the Common Law of Contract: The Rise of the Action of Assumpsit, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1975).

Simpson, A. W. B., A History of the Land Law, 2nd Ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford (1986).

Smith, E. Fitch, Commentaries on Statute and Constitutional Law and Statutory and Constitutional Construction, 2nd Ed., Banks & Bros., New York (1876).

Storing, Herbert J., Ed., The Complete Anti-Federalist, 7 Vols., University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1981).

Story, Joseph, Life and Letters of Joseph Story, 2 Vols., William Wetmore Story, Ed., Charles C. Little and James Brown (1851).

Story, Joseph, Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence, As Administered in England and America, 2 Vols., 2nd Ed.), Little & Brown Co., Boston (1839).

Story, William Wetmore, A Treatise on the Law of Contracts not Under Seal, 2 Vols., Melville M. Bigelow, Ed., 5th Ed., Little Brown and Company, Boston (1874).

Taft, William Howard, Four Aspects of Civil Duty, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York (1908).

Taft, William Howard, Liberty Under Law, and Interpretation of the Principles of Our Constitutional Government, Yale University Press, New Haven (1922).

Taney, Roger Brooke, Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney, LL D, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Samuel Tyler, Ed., J. Murphy & Co., Baltimore (1872).

Taney, Roger, Roger B. Taney, Carl B. Swisher, Ed., Macmillan, New York (1935).

Taussig, F. W., The Tariff History of the United States, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York (1890).

Taylor, John of Caroline, Construction Construed, and Constitutions Vindicated, Shepherd & Pollard, Richmond (1820).

Thibaut, Anton Friedrich Justus, An Introduction to the Study of Jurisprudence, Nathaniel Lindley, trans., T. & J. W. Johnson, Philadelphia (1855).

Thorpe, F. N., Constitutional History of the American People, 1776-1850, 2 Vols., New York (1898).

Turner, Ralph V., The English Judiciary in the Age of Glanville and Bracton: 1166-1239, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1985).

Vanderbilt, Arthur T., The Doctrine of The Separation of Powers and Its Present-Day Significance, The University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (1953).

Van Buren, Martin, Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States, New York (1867).

Vinogradoff Paul, The Collected Papers of Paul Vinogradoff, 2 Vols., Clarendon Press, Oxford (1928)

Washburn, Emory, A Treatise on the American Law of Real Property, 3 Vols., Little, Brown & Co., 5th Ed., (1887).

Webster, Daniel, Letters of Daniel Webster, from Documents Owned Principally by the New Hampshire Historical Society, Claude H. Van Tyne, Ed., New York (1902).

Webster, Daniel, The Works of Daniel Webster, 6 Vols., C. C. Little & J. Brown, Boston (1851).

Williston, Samuel A., A Treatise on the Law of Contracts, Revised Ed., 9 Vols., Baker, Voorhis, New York (1936-45).

Williston, Samuel A., The Law Governing Sales of Goods at Common Law and Under the Uniform Sales Act, Revised Ed., 4 Vols., Baker, Voorhis, New York (1948).

Wilson, Charles, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States of America, J. Debrett, London (1792).

Wilson, James, The Works of James Wilson, James DeWitt Andrews, Ed., 2 Vols., Callaghan and Co., Chicago (1896).

Wise, Henry A., Seven Decades of the Union (The Humanities and Materialism, Illustrated by a Memoir of John Tyler, With Reminiscences of Some of his Great Contemporaries. The Transition State of This Nation – Its Dangers and Their Remedy), J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia (1881).

Wooddeson, Richard, Elements of Jurisprudence; Treated of in the Preliminary Part of a Course of Lectures on the Laws of England, F. B. Rothman (1783).

Wright, Jr., Benjamin F., The Contract Clause of the Constitution, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1938).

Wright, Sir Martin, An Introduction to the Law of Tenures, Mary Owen, Dublin (1750).

LIST UPDATED September 9, 2022.