March 2023 MBR The American History Shelf

The American History Shelf

Seward's Law
Peter Charles Hoffer
Cornell University Press
512 East State Street, Ithaca, NY 14850
www.cornellpress.cornell.edu
9781501767333, $39.95, HC, 210pp

https://www.amazon.com/Sewards-Law-Country-Lawyering-Relational/dp/150176733X

Synopsis: With the publication of "Seward's Law: Country Lawyering, Relational Rights, and Slavery", Professor Peter Charles Hoffer argues that William H. Seward's legal practice in Auburn, New York, informed his theory of relational rights -- a theory that demonstrated how the country could end slavery and establish a practical form of justice.

This theory, Professor Hoffer demonstrates, had ties to Seward's career as a country lawyer. Despite his rise to prominence, and indeed preeminence, as a US secretary of state, Seward's country-lawyer mentality endured throughout his life, as evinced in his personal attitudes and professional conduct.

Relational rights, identified and termed here for the first time by Hoffer, are communal and reciprocal, what everyone owed to every other member of their community. Such rights are at the center of a jurisprudential outlook that arises directly from living in a village.

Though Seward was limited by the Victorian mores and the racialist presumptions of his day, the concept of relational rights that animated him was the natural antithesis to the theories and practices of slavery. In the legal regime underpinning the institution, masters owed nothing to their bondmen and women, while those enslaved unconditionally owed life and labor to their masters.

The irrepressible conflict was, for Seward, jurisprudential as well as moral and political. Hoffer's leading assumption in Seward's Law is that a lifetime spent as a lawyer influences how a person responds to everyday challenges. Seward remained a country lawyer at heart, and that fact defined the course of his political career.

Critique: "Seward's Law: Country Lawyering, Relational Rights, and Slavery" by Professor Peter Charles Hoffer is an impressive and meticulous biography and historical analysis of William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801 - October 10, 1872) in terms of 19th Century American politics, including his impact on the issue of slavery expanding beyond the Southern states. An active and articulate opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, Seward was a prominent figure in the Republican Party in its formative years, and was effective in his work on behalf of the Union as Secretary of State during the Civil War. He is also noted for having negotiated the treaty for the United States to purchase the Alaskan Territory from Russia. While also readily available for the personal reading lists of students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in 19th Century American History & Politics in a digital book format (Kindle, $20.49), "Seward's Law: Country Lawyering, Relational Rights, and Slavery" is an especially recommended addition to community and academic library 19th Century American History/Biography collections, as well as American Anti-Slavery History supplemental curriculum studies list.

Editorial Note: The author, coauthor, or editor of several works, Peter Charles Hoffer (https://history.uga.edu/directory/people/peter-charles-hoffer) is the Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Georgia.

The Missouri Home Guard
Petra DeWitt
University of Missouri Press
113 Heinkel Bldg., 201 S. 7th Street, Columbia, MO 65211
https://upress.missouri.edu
9780826222664, $40.00, HC, 242pp

https://www.amazon.com/Missouri-Home-Guard-Protecting-during/dp/0826222668

Synopsis: Missouri was one of many states that established a defense organization to take over the duties of the National Guard that had been federalized for military service when the United States declared war on Germany in 1917. The tasks of this volunteer Home Guard included traditional National Guard responsibilities such as providing introductory military training for draftable men, protecting crucial infrastructure from potential enemy activities, and maintaining law and order during labor activism.

The Home Guard also functioned to preserve patriotism and reduce opposition to the war. Service in the Guard was a way to show loyalty to one's country, particularly for German Americans, who were frequently under suspicion as untrustworthy. Many German Americans in Missouri enthusiastically signed up to dispel any whispers of treason, while others found themselves torn between the motherland and their new homeland.

Men too old or exempt from the draft for other reasons found meaning in helping with the war effort through the Home Guard while also garnering respect from the community. For similar reasons, women attempted to join the organization as did African Americans, some of whom formed units of a "Negro Home Guard."

Informed by the dynamics of race, gender, and ethnicity, "The Missouri Home Guard: Protecting the Home Front during the Great War" by Professor Petra DeWitt focuses upon this understudied but important organization and knowledgeably examines the fluctuating definition of patriotism and the very real question of who did and who did not have the privilege of citizenship and acceptance in society.

Critique: A seminal study that is enhanced for the reader with the inclusion of numerous illustrations, fifty pages of Notes, a twelve page Bibliography, and a twenty-two page Index, "The Missouri Home Guard: Protecting the Home Front during the Great War" is an unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, community, and academic library 20th Century American History collections, it should be noted for the personal reading lists of students, academia, and non- specialist general readers with an interest in the subject that "The Missouri Home Guard" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $38.00).

Editorial Note: Petra DeWitt (https://missourioverthere.org/about/?historian=petra-dewitt) is Associate Professor of History and Political Science at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. DeWitt specializes in migration and ethnic history and has published several articles and encyclopedia submissions on those subjects. She is also the author of Degrees of Allegiance: Harassment and Loyalty in Missouri's German-American Community during World War I, which won the State Historical Society of Missouri's Missouri Book Award in 2012.

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