1862 SLAVERY & TRIAL OF THE CONSTITUTION. Henry Ward Beecher's Copy of Important Civil War Text.

A very important copy of a landmark work in the history of Constitutional Law. Lawyer, Sidney George Fisher 1862 work, presented here, The Trial of the Constitution, was the first work to interpret the U.S. Constitution "in light of the prevailing European tradition of centralized, responsible government", and it "deserves a permanent place among commentaries on American government . . . " [W. H. Ryker, 1954]. Historian and political scientist Clinton Rossiter has written that Fisher's book ". . . is an eloquent statement of the powers of emergency and self-preservation inherent in the Constitution and government."  A major feature of the book was Fisher's discussion of habeas corpus in the United States, and especially whether a U.S. President has any power to suspend that right. Fisher took the position that U.S. constitutional law regarding habeas corpus was much closer to the British practice under the Habeas Corpus Act 1679 than Fisher's contemporaries such as Horace Binney would