Lectures on Constitutional Law, for the Use of the Law Class.

Richmond: Printed for Shepherd and Colin, 1843. A Definitive Southern Rebuttal: The Only Edition of Tucker's 1843 Constitutional Lectures Tucker, Henry St. George [1780-1848]. Lectures on Constitutional Law, For the Use of the Law Class at the University of Virginia. Richmond: Printed for Shepherd and Colin, 1843. 242 pp. 12mo. (7-1/2" x 4-1/2"). Period-style quarter calf over cloth, lettering piece and gilt fillets to spine, endpapers renewed. Text block shows some toning and light foxing in places; faint, mostly very faint, dampstaining to upper corners. Discreet early 19th-century shelf marks to title-page verso and a faint embossed library stamp to title page and following leaf. A nice copy in a handsome binding. $650. * Only edition. These lectures represent a vital primary source for early American republicanism and are among the first systematic attempts to outline the U.S. Constitution from a Southern perspective. Tucker proposes a vigorous, notably sophisticated defense of states-rights principles in the manner of John Taylor of Caroline. The text serves as a definitive Southern rebuttal to the "nationalist" jurisprudence of Joseph Story, Daniel Webster, and other proponents of a powerful Federal government. Tucker was a central figure in Virginia's legal history, serving as President of the Supreme Court of Appeals and later as Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, where he famously established the university's Honor System during the period these lectures were delivered. This work grew directly out of his classroom instruction and remains a cornerstone of 19th-century Southern legal thought. Cohen, Bibliography of Early American Law 2928.…