Consulting a range of legal sources, this text offers a biographical approach to the American president, Martin Van Buren. It examines Van Buren's place in American political and legal history and the development of his ideology as he accepted the key components of liberal republicanism.

* When citizen-soldier Alvin Coe Voris wrote his first letter to his beloved wife, Lydia, in 1861, he embarked on a correspondence that would span the duration of the Civil War. A former Ohio legislator, Voris filled his letters with keen insights into the daily life of soldiers, army politics, and such issues as the morality of combat and the evils of slavery. Often heartwrenching and invariably gripping, the 428 letters collected in this volume form an unbroken and unique Civil War chronicle. Voris's personal merit and political influence earned him the rank of brevet major general of...