BYU Law Library is celebrating the 250 anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with a display of three special books from our collection! If you can’t drop by the display on the library’s second floor (between the circulation and reference desks), here is a description of these treasures from our collection and what they teach us about the incredible Declaration of Independence.
- The Declaration of Independence was considered such a key legal document that most early compilations of state statutes included it, often at the beginning of the book. Our display contains a prime example of this centering of the Declaration of Independence among state legal documents. The Compiled Laws of the Territory of Utah Containing All the Statutes Now in Force was published by the Deseret News Steam Printing Establishment in Salt Lake City in 1876. This book highlights the importance of the Declaration of Independence by listing the Declaration on the book’s title page directly under the title. The Declaration is even listed above the U.S. Constitution and in a larger font.
- We often forget that half of the Declaration describes the injuries King George III committed against the colonies. Your Magnificent Declaration, by Bruce Allyn Findlay and Esther Blair Findlay, breaks down the Declaration of Independence into its component parts and explains them with the assistance of illustrations. Bruce Allyn Findlay had previously been the Associate Superintendent of the Los Angeles City School District before he wrote and published this book with his wife in 1961. The book is good reminder not to skip over the list describing the king’s tyranny, but to review it and ponder how it is still relevant today.
- Did you know that the nation’s first law professor was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence? George Wythe, law professor at the College of William and Mary from 1779, signed the Declaration and was instrumental in Virginia’s ratification of the U.S. Constitution. However, Wythe’s true love was not politics but teaching. Signers of the Declaration: Historic Places Commemorating the Signing of the Declaration of Independence was published by the National Park Service in 1973 in advance of the bicentennial of the Declaration in 1976. This book contains portraits of the signers and their homes, including George Wythe’s, where he seemingly was murdered by his nephew with poisoned coffee, along with a young former slave he was educating at the time. Click here to read more about this shocking crime.
