“Diverse combatants presently debate limiting government’s eminent domain power over private property. The debaters, and all of the readers of core Civil War–Reconstruction histories, should exploit Hamilton’s lucid inquiry into Lincoln-era property confiscation policies.”

Harold Hyman, Rice University

“The Limits of Sovereignty makes an important contribution to the legal and constitutional history of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Hamilton shows how debates over property confiscation in the Union, the Confederacy and in the Supreme Court raised fundamental questions of constitutional rights and civil liberties. This well-researched and well-written book provides new insights into how ideas of property and state power were debated and defined during the Civil War, with consequences that reach from Reconstruction to the present day.”-- Robert J. Kaczorowski, Fordham University School of Law

Robert J. Kaczorowski

“I suspect a good many of us are going to have to revise a number of lectures to incorporate this material, which is not only scholarly but a fun read. Whatever you make of the general thesis, one I find largely convincing, The Limits of Sovereignty clearly demonstrates why students of American constitutional development must understand the confiscation debates of the Civil War and does so with polish and intelligence.”

Mark Graber | Balkinization

“A well written concise consideration of an important feature of the Civil War—first, the confiscation of enemy property by the Union sovereignty, and second, that of the so-called Confederacy during the Civil War. . . . An excellent introduction into one of the lesser known but signmificant legal aspects of the war.”

Robert M. Spector | Law & Politics Book Review

“A concise, well-written, and well argued account. . . . The insights of this fine book can be applied throughout the field of economic history.”

Franklin Noll | Enterprise & Society

“Hamilton has crafted an important advancement in the legal history of the era of the United States Civil War. . . . [The book] ought to find a place on the shelf of every serious scholar of the era, regardless of field.”

Thomas C. Mackey | American Historical Review

Making legal history interesting and comprehensible to nonlawyers is often a difficult task. Hamilton performs it skillfully. . . . A valuable contribution to nineteenth-century legal history.”

Joseph A. Ramney | The Historian

“[The author] situates Civil War property confiscation as among the salient events that pushed liberal constitutionalism to unchallenged dominance and republicanism into total eclipse. Hamilton’s closely argued book successfully links the Civil War with long-term trends in American history.”

Stephen A. Siegel | Law and History Review