Books by Paul Finkelman
American Documents: The Constitution
Constitutional law expert Paul Finkelman offers readers a carefully researched and highly readable look at the document that is the blueprint of American democracy. He begins by showing how ineffective the Confederation government was in dealing with the problems facing the newly independent republic: no uniform laws among states, no courts to settle arguments, no power to collect taxes. Then the reader sits in on the Constitutional Convention, where arguments about how to balance power between large and small states and how to count slaves as part of the population are among the key issues. They will learn about the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, the Connecticut Plan, and the Three-fifths Compromise, and meet some of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists who passionately argued the Constitution's pros and cons until it was finally ratified and became the law of the land. Includes the complete text of The Constitution.
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Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court (The Nathan I. Huggins Lectures)
The three most important Supreme Court Justices before the Civil War―Chief Justices John Marshall and Roger B. Taney and Associate Justice Joseph Story―upheld the institution of slavery in ruling after ruling. These opinions cast a shadow over the Court and the legacies of these men, but historians have rarely delved deeply into the personal and political ideas and motivations they held. In Supreme Injustice, the distinguished legal historian Paul Finkelman establishes an authoritative account of each justice’s proslavery position, the reasoning behind his opposition to black freedom, and the incentives created by circumstances in his private life.
Finkelman uses census data and other sources to reveal that Justice Marshall aggressively bought and sold slaves throughout his lifetime―a fact that biographers have ignored. Justice Story never owned slaves and condemned slavery while riding circuit, and yet on the high court he remained silent on slave trade cases and ruled against blacks who sued for freedom. Although Justice Taney freed many of his own slaves, he zealously and consistently opposed black freedom, arguing in Dred Scott that free blacks had no Constitutional rights and that slave owners could move slaves into the Western territories. Finkelman situates this infamous holding within a solid record of support for slavery and hostility to free blacks.
Supreme Injustice boldly documents the entanglements that alienated three major justices from America’s founding ideals and embedded racism ever deeper in American civic life.
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The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference
by Paul Finkelman, Gary W. Gallagher, Margaret E. Wagner
"The Civil War was the most dramatic, violent, and fateful experience in American history. . . . Little wonder that the Civil War had a profound impact that has echoed down the generations and remains undiminished today. That impact helps explain why at least 50,000 books and pamphlets . . . on the Civil War have been published since the 1860s. Most of these are in the Library of Congress, along with thousands of unpublished letters, diaries, and other documents that make this depository an unparalleled resource for studying the war. From these sources, the editors of The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference have compiled a volume that every library, every student of the Civil War—indeed everyone with an interest in the American past—will find indispensable." —From the Foreword by James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom
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