Henry Wheaton

Henry Wheaton ( born November 27, 1785 Providence, Rhode Iceland, † March 11 1848 in Roxburgh, Massachusetts ) was an American politician and writer.

Henry Wheaton studied at Brown University in Providence law, which he continued from 1805 to 1806 in France, Holland and England. After his return to the U.S., he became a lawyer in Rhode Iceland, and later in New York. In 1812 he became a member of Seeger Report Creation in New York. Here he gave in 1815 his Digest of the Law of Maritime Captures out.

From 1816 he worked in the Supreme Court (United States Supreme Court ) in Washington, DC as Reporter of Decisions where, since 1789 to 1827 collected all the decisions that were taken there and published.

In 1821 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention of New York; two years later he was admitted to the House of Representatives of the State, the General Assembly elected. In 1824 he founded in New York the Athenaeum, a public literary institute, and in 1826 he participated in the drafting of a private Code for the State of New York. In 1827 he became the first American envoy sent to Copenhagen, devoted himself during his spending years studying Scandinavian languages ​​, history and antiquities in his work "History of the Northmen or Danes and Normans " ( Lond. 1831, French 1844) appeared.

After several trips to France, England and Germany, he returned back to the U.S. in 1834, but in 1835 went as ambassador to Berlin, to name negotiate with the German Zollverein. 1836 published his Elements of international law ( 8th ed by Dana, Boston 1866; well edited by Boyd, Lond 1880. . Processing in French, 5th ed, Leipz 1874, 2 vols ), which in 1845 extended History of the law of nations followed. Same subject treated the prize essay of the Histoire du droit des gens progres en Europe et en Amerique depuis la paix de Westphalia (Leipzig 1841, 4th edition, das. 1865, 2 vols ). In 1845 he was recalled from his diplomatic post and became a teacher of International Law at Harvard Law School, a faculty of Harvard University.

Works

• Elements of International Law ISBN 0306702061 (English)
• Enquiry into the Validity of the British Claim to a Right of Visitation and Search of American Vessels Suspected to be Engaged in the African Slave Trade ISBN 0837120721 (English)