Books by Paul Finkelman

Winner, Joseph A. Andrews Award from the American Association of Law Libraries, 1986. Provides a detailed discussion and analysis of the pamphlet materials on the law of slavery published in the United States and Great Britain.

In this eye-opening biography, the legal scholar and historian Finkelman reveals how Millard Fillmore's response to the crisis he inherited in 1850 set the country on a dangerous path that led to the Civil War.

In ruling after ruling, the three most important pre-Civil War justices-Marshall, Taney, and Story-upheld slavery. Paul Finkelman establishes an authoritative account of each justice's proslavery position, the reasoning behind his opposition to black freedom, and the personal incentives that embedded racism ever deeper in American civic life.

In this book, prominent historians of slavery and legal scholars analyze the intricate relationship between slavery, race, and the law from the earliest Black Codes in colonial America to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision prior to the Civil War. Slavery & the Law's wide-ranging essays focus on comparative slave law, auctioneering practices, rules of evidence, and property rights, as well as issues of criminality, punishment, and constitutional law.