The Papers of James Iredell.

The Papers of James Iredell. Volume III: 1784-1789. Edited by Donna Kelly and Lang Baradell. (Raleigh: Office of Archives and History, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 2003. Pp. lviii, 583. $30.00, ISBN 0-86526-310-8.)

Those familiar with James Iredell Sr., an associate justice on the United States Supreme Court from 1790 to 1799, may assume this volume is only for legal historians. They would be mistaken; it is also strong in political, social, and cultural history.

The introduction provides a wonderful context. The content of this volume is commendable. This book has several themes running through it: the precariousness of health and life, the formal and informal delivery of mail, Iredell's law practice (at its height) and the legal issues he confronted, the interaction between law and politics, Iredell's role in North Carolina's ratification of the United States Constitution, and the challenging nature of three of Iredell's English friends/relatives (who were remarkably self-centered).

The documentation is very substantial. In reading the volume straight-through, duplication was irritating. But most researchers are likely to rely on the index. To such a user the more frequent footnotes will be helpful.

Despite its many strengths, this volume has two weaknesses. The index predominately includes the names of people. Genealogists will welcome this; historians will not. The index is very weak in entries for legal topics, social and cultural items, and politics. This may be remedied by supplementing the indexing in a cumulative index in the final volume of letters.

The calendar of papers lists in italics the eighty documents not included in this volume. Provided are the date, author, archive, and two or three words about content. The letter printed as August 5, 1785, in Griffith J. McRee, Life and Correspondence of James Iredell (2 vols.; New York, 1857), II, 127, is published correctly in this volume as 1788 (pp. 414-15). The stated goal was to reprint documents "to provide a comprehensive view of James Iredell's professional and personal life" (p. xlvii). Approximately eleven letters "not included in this volume" have been excerpted in footnotes, but they do not necessarily appear near the letters' dates (p. xiii). The calendar should have indicated where these excerpts are printed. The decision not to publish some letters related to legal and court business seems reasonable since legal volumes will follow. The decision not to publish inconsequential items also seems reasonable. But the omission of some letters concerning political writings, politics, and finances is less comprehensible. Material in which Iredell commented on the confiscation law and the struggle between the attorneys and judges appears in McRee, Life and Correspondence of James Iredell, II, 133 and 159. It does not appear, however, in the volume under review and was worthy of inclusion. And a letter from which quotations were included in two footnotes should have been printed in full (pp. 156n2, and 255nl).

In making decisions about what to include the editors overlooked broader considerations. It would have consumed only a few additional pages to provide more details about the unpublished items. For someone interested in Iredell's travel to and from court, knowing the location from which he wrote the unpublished letters would be helpful. For someone interested in the history of weather or changes in climate, the information on weather might be of interest. A more detailed summary would permit future researchers to know whether they should read an unpublished document in an archive. In the next volume, editors should include additional information about the unpublished letters in this volume.

Despite the two concerns, this volume is a successful effort at opening up, in great detail, North Carolina history of the Confederation era to a broader audience.

J. CHARLES WALDRUP

University of North Carolina