Biography:
B.A., Catholic University of America
LL.B., Harvard University
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin (Madison)

Professor Wiecek practiced law in New Hampshire and taught legal and constitutional history at the University of Missouri-Columbia for sixteen years before coming to Syracuse. He has written or edited seven books, as well as numerous articles and chapters, on slavery and its abolition, republicanism, nineteenth-century constitutional development, nuclear power, and the United States Supreme Court.

Professor Wiecek has completed a manuscript history of the United States Supreme Court from 1941 to 1953, covering the chief-justiceships of Harlan Fiske Stone and Fred Vinson, for the Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States. He has taught courses in legal and constitutional history, constitutional law, property, race and law, corporations, civil procedure, and Roman law. He has experimented with the use of electronic casebooks in the classroom. He holds a joint appointment as Professor of History in the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Professor Wiecek received the University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award in 1997 and in 2001 the Chancellor's Citation for Exceptional Academic Achievement, the university's highest academic award. He was profiled in the Winter 1999-2000 issue of the Syracuse University Magazine. For a bibliography of Dr. Wiecek's publications, see his curriculum vita.    

Professor Wiecek's personal website can be viewed at www.wmwiecek.com      

Courses:
LAW 699:Constitutional Law II
LAW 721:Federal Courts

Publications:

Articles and Book Chapters:

The Rise and Fall of Classical Legal Thought, in CONSTITUTIONALISM AND 
AMERICAN CULTURE 66 (S. Van Burkleo et al., eds, Kansas Universities Press, 
2002).

Sabotage, Treason, and Military Tribunals in World War II, in TOTAL WAR AND THE 
CONSTITUTION (D. Ernst & V. Jew, eds., Greenwood Press, forthcoming, 2002).

The Legal Foundations of Domestic Anticommunism: The Background of Dennis v.
United States, 2002 SUP. CT. REV. 375 (U. Chicago Press, 2002).

Felix Frankfurter, Incorporation, and the Willie Francis Case, J. SUP. CT.
HISTORY (2001).

Joseph R. Lamar and Stanley Matthews in John A. Garratyand Mark C. 
Carnes, eds., AMERICAN NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY (1999), XIII, 66-67 and 
XIV 728-7229.

Sandra Day O'Connor, in John H. Garraty and Jerome L. Sternstein, 
eds., ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, 2ND ED. (1996),
840-841.

Scott v. Sandford, in Donald C. Bacon et al., eds., THE ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS (1995), IV, 1770-1772.

Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court, Legal Thought and Jurisprudence, in 
Peter J. Parish, ed., READER'S GUIDE TO AMERICAN HISTORY (1997).

The Origins of the Law of Slavery in British North America, 17
CARDOZO L. REV. 1711 (1996).

Scott v. Sandford, in Donald C. Bacon et al., THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE 
UNITED STATES CONGRESS (1995), IV, 1770-1772.

Galdly Wolde He Teche: Students, Canon, and Supreme Court History,
JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY. 1995 Yearbook of the Supreme 
Court Historical Society, 11-18.

Constitutional Snipe Hunt, 23 RUTGERS L. J. 252 (1992).

Murdock v. Memphis: Section 25 of the 1789 Judiciary Act and Judicial
Federalism, in Maeva Marcus, ed., ORIGINS OF THE FEDERAL
JUDICIARY: ESSAYS ON THE JUDICIARY ACT OF 1789 (1992), 223-247.

State Protection of Personal Liberty: Remembering the Future, in Paul 
Finkehnan and Stephen E. Gottlieb, eds. TOWARD A USABLE PAST:
LIBERTY UNDER STATE CONSTITUTIONS (1991), 371-387.

United States Supreme Court, in Richard S. Kirkendall, ed., THE HARRY S.
TRUMAN ENCYCLOPEDIA (1990), 347-350.

The Liberal Critique of the U.S. Supreme Court, in Hermann
Wellenreuther, ed., GERMAN ADN AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL
THOUGHT: CONTEXTS, INTERACTION, AND HISTORICAL REALITIES
(1990), 373-392. German versio: Die liberate Kritik an Obersten
Gerischtshof der Yereinigten Staaten, in Wellenreuther and Claudia
Schnurmann, DIE AMERIKANISCHE VERFASSUNG UND DEUTSCH
AMERIKANISCHES VERFASSUNGDENKEN (1991), 435-459.

Old Times There Are Not Forgotten: The Distinctiveness of the Southern
Constitutional Experience, in Kermit L. hall and James W. Ely, Jr., eds.,
AN UNCERTAIN TRADITION: CONSTITUTIONALISM AND THE HISTORY
OF THE SOUTH (1989), 159-197.

Slavery and the United States Constitution, ANGLISTIK AND 
ENGLISHUNTERRICHT. BAND 34: ZWEIEIJNDERT JAHRE
AMERIKANISCHA VERFASSUNG (1988), 83-98.

The Blessings of Liberty: Slavery in the American Constitutional Order,
in Robert A. Goldwin and Art Kaufinan, eds., SLAVERY AND ITS 
CONSEQUENCES: THE CONSTITUTION, EQUALITY, AND RACE (1988),
234.

Clio as Hostage: The United States Supreme Court and the Uses of 
History, 24 CAL. W. L. REV. 227 (1988).

The Witch at teh Christening. Slavery and the Constitution's Origins, in 
Leonard W. Levy and Dennis J. Mahoney, eds., THE FRAMING AND 
RATTIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION (1987), 167-184.

Preface to Historical Race Relations Symposium, 17 RUTGERS L. J. 407
(1986)

Forty-eight Articles in Leonard M. Levy, et al., eds., ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE 
AMERICAN CONSTITUTION (1986)

Chief Justice Taney and His Court, in THIS CONSTITUTION (Spring
1985), 19-24.

The Imperial Judiciary' in Historical Perspective, in YEARBOOK 1984
SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY (1985), 61-89 

Judicial Systems, in Jack P. Greene, ed., ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN
POLITICAL HISTORY (1984), 11, 680-708.

Latimer: Lawyers, Abolitionists, and the Problem of Unjust Law, in 
Lewis Perry and Michael Fellman, eds., ANTISLAVERY RECONSIDERED:
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THE ABOLITIONISTS (1979), 319-237; paperback
reprint, 1981.

Dred Scott Case adn Ex parte Merryman, in David C. Roller and Robert
W. Twyman, eds., ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOUTHERN HISTORY (1979) 370, 
814.

A Peculiar Conservatism and the Dorr Rebellion: Constitutional Clash
in Jacksonian America, 22 AM. J. LEGAL HIST, 237 (1978).

Slavery and Abolition Befor the United States Supreme Court,
1820-1860, 65 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN HISTORY 34 (1978).

The Statutory Law of Slavery and Race in the Thirteen Mainland
Colonies of British America, 34 WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY 258
(1977).

Somerset: Lord Mansfield and hte Legitimacy of Slavery in the 
Anglo-American World, 24 U. CHI. L. REV. 86 (1974).

Popular Sovereignty in the Dory War: Conservative Counterblast, 32
RHODE ISLAND HISTORY, 35 (1973).

Irving Lehman, DICTIONARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY, Supplement 
Three; 1941-1945, 451---452.

The Place of Chief Judge Irving Lehman in American Constitutional 
Development, 60 AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORICAL QUARTERLY 280
(1971).

The Great Writ and Reconstruction: The Habeas Corpus Act of 1867, 36
JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN HISTORY, 530 (1970).

The Reconstruction of Federal Judicial Power 1863-1876, 13 AMERICAN 
JOURNAL OF LEGAL HISTORY 333 (1969). Reprinted in Bobbs-Merrill
reprint series; also reprinted in Lawrence M. Friedman and Harry N.
Scheiber, es., AMERICAN LAW AND THE CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER
(1977).

Voice of Troubled Intellectuals, SATURDAY REVIEW, January 3, 1970, 
23-25. The Nation and the State: 1868, 1968 WIS. L. REV. 312 (1968).

The Origin of the United States Court of Claims, 20 ADMIN. L. REV. 38
(1968).


Books:

THE LOST WORLD OF CLASSICAL LEGAL THOUGHT: LAW AND 
IDEOLOGY IN AMERICA, 1886-1937 (1998).

AMERICAN LEGAL HISTORY: CASES AND MATERIALS (2nd Ed. 1996).
(Co-authors: Kermit L. Hall and Paul Finkelman)

THE OXFORD COMPANION TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES, (1992) (Kermit Hall, General Editor; James W. Ely Jr., Joel B.
Groomsman, and William M. Wiecek, editors) (includes fifty-three
articles by Wiecek).

LIBERTY UNDER LAW: THE SUPREME COURT IN AMERICAN LIFE (1988).

CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN A MODERNIZING SOCIETY: THE 
UNITED STATES, 1803 to 1917 (1985).

NUCLEAR AMERICA: MILITARY AND CIVILIAN NUCLEAR POWER IN THE 
UNITED STATES, 1940-1980 (1984).

EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW: CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT, 
1835-1982 (1982).

THE SOURCES OF ANTISLAVERY CONSTITUTIONALISM IN AMERICA,
1760-1848 (1977).

THE GUARANTEE CLAUSE OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION (1972).