Professor Benedict joined the Ohio State University faculty in 1970, retiring in 2005. He received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Illinois
and his Ph.D. from Rice University. He has also been a visiting professor
at M.I.T., Yale Law School, the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom,
and Hokkaido and Doshisha Universities in Japan. He also served as adjunct
professor of The Ohio State University School of Law.
Professor Benedict is a recognized authority in Anglo-American constitutional
and legal history, the history of civil rights and liberties, the federal
system and the Civil War and Reconstruction. His The Impeachment
and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1973) and A Compromise of Principle:
Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction (1975) are standard
reading for students of the Civil War and Reconstruction. He has authored
a widely used textbook on American constitutional history, The Blessings
of Liberty (1996, rev. ed. 2005), a companion Sources in American Constitutional
History (1996), and a reader in Reconstruction History, The Fruits
of Victory: Alternatives in Restoring the Union, 1865-1877 (1975,
rev. ed. 1986). He also prepared the American Historical Association's
bicentennial essay on the history of American civil liberty, Civil
Rights and Liberties (1987) and co-edited The History of Ohio Law (2004).
Professor Benedict has published more than 40 essays in leading American
history and law journals, as well as in books of essays. Some of these
have been widely reprinted. A number have been updated and republished in his Preserving the Constitution: Essays on Politics and the Constitution in the Reconstruction Era (2006). He has received many grants, fellowships,
and other recognitions and is a fellow of the Society of American Historians.
He is currently working on the constitutional politics of Reconstruction.
Professor Benedict has also been an active member of the history profession.
He currently serves as Parliamentarian of the American Historical Association,
and is a past President of the Society for Historians of the Gilded
Age and Progressive Era. He also serves on the committees, editorial
boards, and advisory boards of numerous organizations, journals, and
historical projects.
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