Book Description

Originally published: Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1881. 2 volumes. 534, 552 pp. Volume I: Reminiscences, Addresses and Essays. Volume II: Contributions to Political Science: Including Lectures on the Constitution of the United States and Other Papers. Constitutional law, international law, military law and political science are among the primary topics of this collection of writings, essays and speeches, some previously unpublished. One will also find several interesting pieces on educational policy, studies of Washington, Napoleon, Alexander von Humboldt, and Barthold George Niebuhr and a reminiscence of the Battle of Waterloo. With an introduction by Johann Caspar Bluntschli [1808-1881], the noted Swiss scholar of constitutional and international law, and a chronological list of Leiber's writings. FRANCIS LIEBER [1798-1872] was a prominent political philosopher and who helped lay the foundation for the study of political science in the United States. Renowned for his theory of civil liberty which combined an appreciation for the English concept of decentralized political institutions that protected the rights of the individual with the German idea of an overall national purpose, he bridged the intellectual gap between Europe and America. A Prussian scholar and political activist who was imprisoned twice in Germany for his liberalism, he was one of the first university-trained scholars to emigrate to the United States. A scholar of wide interests beyond law and politics, he published studies on economics, statistics, education and penal reform and produced and edited the Encyclopedia Americana, the first work of its kind published in the United States. He became professor of history and political economy at South Carolina College, and was later appointed to the same chair at Columbia College. In 1865 he moved to Columbia Law School, where he was renowned for his contributions.