Henry Wheaton - Works

Works

• Digest of the Law of Maritime Captures (1815)
• Supreme Court Reports (12 vols., New York, 1826-27)
• A Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States from Its Establishment in 1789 to 1820 (1820-29)
• Life of William Pinkney, which he also abridged for publication in Sparks's “American Biography” series (1826)
• History of the Northmen, or Danes and Normans, from the Earliest Times to the Conquest of England by William of Normandy London: J. Murray, 1831 at Internet Archive, which Washington Irving said “evinced throughout the enthusiasm of an antiquarian, the liberality of a scholar, and the enlightened toleration of a citizen of the world” (French translation by Paul Guillot, Paris, 1844)
• Elements of International Law (1836), his most important work, of which a 6th edition with the last corrections of the author and a memoir was prepared by William Beach Lawrence (Boston, 1855) and an 8th by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (Boston, 1866). The contents of the 8th edition were the source of controversy between Lawrence (who claimed his notes from earlier editions had been improperly copied) and Dana.
• History of Scandinavia, with Andrew Crichton (1838) A sequel to History of the Northmen.
• Histoire du progrès des gens en Europe depuis la paix de Westphalie jusqu'au congres de Vienne, avec un précis historique du droit des gens européens avant la paix de Westphalie, written in 1838 for a prize offered by the French Academy of Moral and Political Science, and translated in 1845 by W. B. Lawrence as A History of the Law of Nations in Europe and America, New York: Gould, Banks & Co.. The History took rank at once as one of the leading works on the subject of which it treats.
• An Enquiry into the Validity of the British Claim to a Right of Visitation and Search of American Vessels suspected to be engaged in the Slave Trade (Philadelphia and London, 1842; 2d ed., 1858)

Wheaton translated the Code of Napoleon, but the manuscript was destroyed by fire. He also contributed numerous political, historical, and literary articles to the North American Review and other periodicals.