Macomb, Alexander:

$1,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

A TREATISE ON MARTIAL LAW, AND COURTS-MARTIAL; AS PRACTISED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. This copy bears the ownership signature of a "Capt. Belknap," on the titlepage, likely the eventual Gen. William Goldsmith Belknap, who rose to prominence in the Mexican-American War. This is the first important original American work on martial law and courts-martial. Although Stephen Adye's treatise on courts-martial was published in Philadelphia in 1769, it was a thoroughly British work, and its later editions appeared in England. Macomb's book, however, is specifically adapted to United States law and is based on his experience "with the army on the western waters and in the Atlantic states." Macomb was the first student to receive formal training at West Point and was a major in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers when the present work appeared. This copy contains two copies of a two-page Preface, from two different settings of type and bound in between the end of the table of contents and the beginning of the main text. A key American legal treatise.

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