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America's lawyer-presidents : from law office to Oval Office / edited by Norman Gross ; foreword by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Van Pelt Library KF353 .A46 2004
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Format:
Book
Contributor:
Gross, Norman.
O'Connor, Sandra Day, 1930-2023.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Lawyers--United States--Biography.
Lawyers.
United States.
Presidents--United States--Biography.
Presidents.
Genre:
Biographies.
Physical Description:
xix, 344 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm
Place of Publication:
Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press ; Chicago, Ill. : ABA Museum of Law, 2004.
Summary:
Of America's forty-three presidents, twenty-five have been lawyers. John Adams, the first lawyer-president, handled prominent political cases during his twenty-year law practice and made significant contributions to our nation's founding charters. His son, John Quincy Adams, argued landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases both before and after his presidency. He was one of eight lawyer-presidents to appear as counsel before the highest court in the land. America's most beloved and admired president, Abraham Lincoln, was involved in more than five thousand cases during his twenty-five-year legal career, while Rutherford Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, and other lawyer-presidents gained fame handling sensational murder trials and high-profile cases.
America's Lawyer-Presidents sheds light on the legal backgrounds of each of these chief executives and describes how their experiences as lawyers affected and shaped their presidencies. Written by historians and presidential scholars and highlighted by photos, illustrations, and sidebars, America's Lawyer-Presidents provides new insights into our national leaders and their lives and times from colonial days to the present.
Contents:
Founding fathers and sons. Law in colonial America / Lawrence M. Friedman ; John Adams : patriot lawyer / L. Kinvin Wroth ; Thomas Jefferson: legal wordsmith / David T. Konig ; James Monore: occasional lawyer / Daniel Preston ; John Quincy Adams: eloquent advocate / Howard Jones
Antebellum presidents. Law in antebellum America / Lawrence M. Friedman ; Andrew Jackson: frontier justice / David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler ; Martin van Buren: boy lawyer / James A. Henretta
John Tyler: Virginia counsel / E. Lee Shepard
James K. Polk: sometime lawyer / Robert W. Johannsen ; Millard Fillmore: lawyer mentor / Elbert B. Smith ; Franklin Pierce: courtroom orator / Christopher M. Johnson ; James Buchanan: strict constructionist / Jean H. Baker
Lawyer Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln: prairie lawyer / Paul Finkelman ; Selected cases of A. Lincoln, esq., attorney and counsellor-at-law / John A. Lupton ; Lincoln's Notes for a law lecture
Gilded age presidents. Law in the gilded age / Lawrence M. Friedman ; Rutherford B. Hayes: volunteer counsel / Ari Hoogenboom ; James A. Garfield: Supreme Court counsel / Allan Peskin ; Chester A. Arthur: war crimes lawyer / Thomas C. Reeves ; Grover Cleveland: an honest lawyer / Eugene C. Gerhart
Benjamin Harrison: high-priced counsel / Allen Sharp ; William McKinley: a good lawyer / Lewis L. Could
New century presidents. Law in the new century / Lawrence M. Friedman ; William Howard Taft: Mr. Chief Justice / Melvyn Dubofsky
Woodrow Wilson: reluctant lawyer / Melvin I. Urofsky ; Calvin Coolidge: country lawyer / Russell Fowler ; Franklin Delano Roosevelt: contrarian counselor / Jerome J. Shestack
The modern presidency. Law in modern America / Lawrence M. Friedman ; Richard M. Nixon: bicoastal practitioner / Irwin F. Gellman ; Gerald R. Ford: all-American counsel / David Horrocks ; William Jefferson Clinton: political lawyer / David H. Bennett
Presidential appointments: Supreme Court Justices and chief government lawyers. Lawyer-presidents and their Supreme Court appointments / Barbara A. Perry ; Supreme Court appointments ; Lawyer-presidents and their attorneys (general) / Cornell W. Clayton ; Attorneys general appointments ; Solicitors general appointments.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages [331]-334) and index.
ISBN:
0810112183
OCLC:
54544122

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