Audio Books

Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States

Ida B. Wells-Barnett
The purpose of the pages which follow shall be to give the record which has been made, not by colored men, but that which is the result of compilations made by white men, of reports sent over the civilized world by white men in the South. Out of their own mouths shall the murderers be condemned. For a number of years the Chicago Tribune, admittedly one of the leading journals of America, has made a specialty of the compilation of statistics touching upon lynching. The data compiled by that journal and published to the world January 1, 1894, up to the present time has not been disputed. In order to be safe from the charge of exaggeration, the incidents hereinafter reported have been confined to those vouched for by the Tribune. (From Chapter 1)

Constitution of the United States of America, 1787, The

United States, Founding Fathers of the
This 1787 document defines the rights and responsibilities of federal government of the United States of America.

Bill of Rights

Madison, James
The Bill of Rights are the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, and were ratified on December 15, 1791.

Riot Act, The

British Parliament
The Riot Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1714, the first year of the reign of George I, and came into effect in August 1715. This was a time of widespread social disturbance, as the preamble describes; the Act sought to put an end to this. A group of twelve or more people, “being unlawfully, riotously and tumultuously assembled”, would be read a proclamation; they must disperse within an hour, on pain of death. The same fate would befall anyone preventing the reading of the proclamation, or damaging buildings while on a riot. If the law enforcement officers happened to injure or kill a rioter, they were immune from prosecution. The reading of the proclamation, the wording of which is detailed in the Act, was the necessary first step before action could be taken against the rioters. This gave us the phrase “to read the riot act”, to give a stern warning or rebuke. The Act was repealed in Britain in 1973, but had long since fallen into disuse there. A version is still in force in Canada.

Magna Carta

Unknown
The original document is in Latin so this can only be a fairly rough approximation of the actual content. The text used is the first version in the Gutenberg collection. - Magna Carta is the most significant early influence on the long historical process that has led to the rule of constitutional law today. Magna Carta was originally created because of disagreements between the Pope, King John and his English barons over the rights of the King. Magna Carta required the king to renounce certain rights and respect certain legal procedures and to accept that the will of the king could be bound by law.

Practical Instruction for Detectives

Emmerson W. Manning
Having been connected for many years with two of the largest and most successful private detective agencies in this country, both as an operator and as an official, and having been requested to outline briefly and concisely the most modern and up-to-date methods employed by leading detectives and private detective agencies of today, I shall confine myself in these pages to facts and a few personal experiences. I will endeavor to show that any person possessed of average intelligence, and who will use good common sense, can become a successful detective, regardless of his present or previous occupation.

This country today stands in need of more and better detectives than ever before in its history, and if one be inclined to doubt this statement he need only pick up the morning newspaper of any city of any size and be convinced that this is true. Hundreds of crimes of all descriptions are committed daily and statistics show that more than fifty per cent of persons committing crimes go unmolested and unpunished. Besides, there are the thousands of employees on our various transportation systems, in banks, stores, and in mercantile establishments, who are daily committing thefts of various kinds from their employers and whose nefarious operations are rarely uncovered, when one considers the actual number of thefts committed.

Chronicles of America Volume 14 - Washington and His Colleagues

Henry Jones Ford
This next volume of the Chronicles of American series investigates Washington's development in the day to day world the various dimensions of the newly conceived Federal government with a president, a congress, a supreme court, a cabinet (his own creation), and a state department. Washington, being a man of great strength and character forged his own way, but was surrounded by all those remarkable men who had been his friends and helpers and challengers too in his past who became his colleagues in the endeavor to make the new form of government succeed against sometimes unforeseen and difficult situations.

What Prohibition Has Done to America

Franklin, Fabian
In What Prohibition Has Done to America, Fabian Franklin presents a concise but forceful argument against the Eighteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Beginning in 1920, this Amendment prohibited the sale and manufacture of alcoholic beverages in the United States, until it was repealed in 1933. Franklin contends that the Amendment "is not only a crime against the Constitution of the United States, and not only a crime against the whole spirit of our Federal system, but a crime against the first principles of rational government." Writing only two years after Prohibition began, he correctly predicts many of its disastrous consequences, such as runaway bootlegging and organized crime. The book is both a passionate defense of liberty, and a reminder to Americans of the perils of surrendering it.

Copyright Question, The

Morang, George
This is a letter to the Toronto Board of Trade regarding copyrights.

Art of Cross-Examination

Francis Wellman
A classic text on cross-examination of witnesses, including many examples of techniques used in celebrated cases by such notable attorneys as Abraham Lincoln and future Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo. Wellman sprinkles the text liberally with background facts and explanations of the cases and just plain gossip about the participants. Useful listening for anyone who occasionally feels the need to dig a bit deeper for the truth in any conversation.

On Secret Service

William Nelson Taft
Detective-Mystery stories based on real cases solved by government agents. Created initially in 1865, the U.S. Secret Service continued to expand over the years, particularly following the assassination of President McKinley in 1901. The episodes in this compilation are comprised of authentic stories, dramatized, while remaining true to the actual incidences.

Common Law

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
A history and review of the common law in the United States.

English Constitution

Walter Bagehot
The English Constitution is an extremely accessible work of political and legal science by Walter Bagehot, first published in serialized form in 1865-7. While some of his observations on the English system no longer apply to the modern constitutional organization of the United Kingdom, his philosophical basis is for the most part as sound as ever.

For instance, Bagehot observes in the chapter on the Monarchy that, It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations. The nature of a constitution, the action of an assembly, the play of parties, the unseen formation of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, difficult to know and easy to mistake. But the action of a single will, the fiat of a single mind, are easy ideas: anybody can make them out, and no one can ever forget them. When you put before the mass of mankind the question, "Will you be governed by a king, or will you be governed by a constitution?" the inquiry comes out thus—"Will you be governed in a way you understand, or will you be governed in a way you do not understand?" The issue was put to the French people; they were asked, "Will you be governed by Louis Napoleon, or will you be governed by an assembly?" The French people said, "We will be governed by the one man we can imagine, and not by the many people we cannot imagine".

Law

Frédéric Bastiat
"The law perverted! The law—and, in its wake, all the collective forces of the nation. The law, I say, not only diverted from its proper direction, but made to pursue one entirely contrary! The law becomes the tool of every kind of avarice, instead of being its check! The law guilty of that very inequity which it was its mission to punish! Truly, this is a serious fact, if it exists, and one to which I feel bound to call the attention of my fellow-citizens." —Frédéric Bastiat

Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume 10 - Legal

Robert G. Ingersoll
For those who like courtroom drama, here are Ingersoll’s Opening and Closing arguments on the most famous trials of his career--the Star Route Trials which stretched over 2 years, revealing high government corruption in the U.S. Post Office system's westward expansion. Ingersoll was lead counsel for the defense. Compiled from countless reports and endless conflicting details (much like untangling a huge pile of fishing line), it was said that his prodigious memory of the minutest details without referring to the record, knowledge of the law, impregnable logic, forensic power, lucidity, almost infallible judgment, remarkable ability as an orator that kept the courtroom spellbound; his uniform fairness, tact, candor, humor, and matchless summing up, are vividly captured in these transcripts. "He absolutely made no mistakes", said one federal judge. This volume also contains 3 shorter trial summations: the Munn Trial, the Davis Will Case, and the Russell Case. This is the entirety of Volume X, Dresden Edition, pub. 1900. ~ Summary by Michele Fry

Trial of Oscar Wilde (Dramatic Reading)

Anonymous
In 1895 Oscar Wilde was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years' hard labor. This account of his two trials was compiled from the original shorthand court reports by an anonymous author. While a more complete account of the trial was published several years later, it omitted the more 'sensational' exchanges. This shorter version was clearly intended for a more prurient reader. In it we hear Wilde's famous defence of "the love that dare not speak its name", and see the evidence mount as a succession of attractive young men step into the witness box to tell their tales.

Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, 14 November 1945-1 October 1946: Vol. I

International Military Tribunal
Recognizing the importance of establishing for history an authentic text of the Trial of major German WWII war criminals, the International Military Tribunal, consisting of members from Great Britain, the USA, Russia, and France, directed the publication of the Record of the Trial. This volume contains basic, official, pre-trial documents together with the Tribunal’s judgment and sentence of the defendants. (Summary based on the trial preface)

Public Orations of Demosthenes

Demosthenes
This book, originally published in two volumes, collects the most important complete public orations by Demosthenes, arguably the most famous Athenian orator, that we still have access to. Demosthenes was a Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations are nowadays important sources of contemporary Athenian oratorical expression and provide an insight into the politics and legal affairs of Athens during the 4th century BC.

Chronicles of America Volume 15 - Jefferson and his Colleagues

Allen Johnson
In this volume, we have the Virginia Dynasty of presidents: Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. America at this time was involved in expansion with the Louisiana Purchase and the annexation of the Floridas. Then too we were involved in international affairs especially with Tripoli, England (the War of 1812), and Spain. And all this led to the establishment of what has become known as the Monroe Doctrine. At the end of it all, America has become more thoroughly American. Of course, on the horizon as a consequence of The Missouri Compromise looms the controversy surrounding slavery. This is Volume 15 of the Chronicles of America Series.

Use Of The Dead To The Living

Thomas Southwood Smith
In 1827 Thomas Southwood-Smith published The Use of the Dead to the Living, a pamphlet which argued that the current system of burial in the United Kingdom was a wasteful use of bodies that could otherwise be used for dissection by the medical profession. "If, by any appropriation of the dead, I can promote the happiness of the living, then it is my duty to conquer the reluctance I may feel to such a disposition of the dead, however well-founded or strong that reluctance may be". Southwood-Smith's lobbying helped lead to the 1832 Anatomy Act, the legislation which allowed the state to seize unclaimed corpses from workhouses and sell them to surgical schools. While this act is credited with ending the practice of grave robbery, it has also been condemned as discriminatory against the poor. Thomas Southwood- Smith (1788 – 1861) was an English physician and sanitary reformer.

Tales Of The Royal Irish Constabulary

Unknown
The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the armed police force of the United Kingdom in Ireland from the early nineteenth century until 1922. About seventy-five percent of the RIC were Roman Catholic and about twenty-five percent were of various Protestant denominations, the Catholics mainly constables and the Protestants officers. In consequence of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the RIC was disbanded in 1922 and was replaced by the Garda Síochána in the Irish Free State and the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland. This book of stories about the RIC, written by a staunch Crown Loyalist, was published a year before its dissolution. A few terms: Sinn Fein were insurgents fighting to establish an independent Irish state; Volunteers were local members of the Sinn Fein; Black and Tans were a force of temporary constables formed to assist the RIC; Auxiliaries or Auxiliary Cadets or merely Cadets were another group in aid of the RIC; "gone to America" was a euphemism usually meaning death (unless the context showed that it really meant emigration); "Castle" meant Dublin Castle off Dame Street, Dublin, Ireland, was until 1922 the seat of the United Kingdom government's administration in Ireland. ( david wales)

Essay on the Trial by Jury

Lysander Spooner
FOR more than six hundred years that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws.

So begins Spooner's epic on the jury, its origins and history. Spooner examines the history and powers of a jury, from the magna carta in King John's time, to the practices in the 18th century. A classic work on law, Spooner argues that the decision of the jury is sovereign over the king's law.

Jim Crow Car; Or, Denouncement of Injustice Meted Out to the Black Race

John Clay Coleman
"My opposition to injustice, imposition, discrimination and prejudice, which have for many years existed against the colored people of the South, has led to this little book. In many parts of America the press has been furnished with “matter” for defending the colored people, through the medium of “Coleman’s Illustrated Lectures.” By request of my many auditors, some of whom being leading elements of the Northern States and Canada, this volume is published. Many persons interested in the welfare of the negro, have sought a more elaborate book on the Southern horrors. Therefore, the manner in which the colored people are treated, and the laws devised against them from time to time, are the chief subjects." (Rev. J.C. Coleman)

Quoting extensively from Henry McNeal Turner and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, as well as his own experiences traveling in the South and on segregated American railroad lines, the Reverend John Clay Coleman published this book on the state of the Jim Crow era in the American South, examining the US Supreme Court decision declaring the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, the horrors of lynching (and his own experience raising a guard of black citizens of Decatur, IL, to protect the life of a man jailed there), and the degradation of segregation. (TheodenHumphrey)

Law and Medical Men

Robert Vashon Rogers
The idea that in the library of nearly every practitioner in the professions of both Physic and Law there has been for some time a small gap among the books, which could be filled by a little work like this now submitted, has induced the author to prepare and publish the following pages.While it is hoped that this little work will prove of use to the members of the Legal and Medical Professions, it is intended to be suggestive rather than exhaustive—a primer not an encyclopædia; and it is not expected that it will obviate the necessity for frequent conferences between physicians and lawyers whenever, in the practice of either, questions arise requiring the experience of the other.In most cases the very words of the judges and reporters have been used, and if any expressions are noticed that may be deemed over strong it will be found that they are the words of others: the author’s aim has been rather to act as an humble compiler and citer of cases, than to obtrude opinions or theories of his own.Brief chapters on Dentists and Druggists have been given because of the intimate connection between these gentlemen and the members of the medical profession.With great diffidence this book is committed to the tender mercies of the critics of these two learned professions—to those who can so effectually wield the pen, the tongue and the scalpel.

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