[Georgetown]
Contemporary calf [front cover nearly detached]. [2], 126, 64, xiv, [1], [1 blank] pp. Blank upper margin of title page excised. Lower right corners of first few leaves stained. Good+. An errata is at page [2]. The Laws - - from Appeals, Appointments, and Apprentices, to Wells, Wharfs, and Wood Corders - - also include numerous provisions for the regulation of "Servants and Slaves." The Appendix reproduces the Maryland laws for "laying out and erecting a town on Potomac river," which would become Georgetown, and its later additions in Montgomery County; the Act to incorporate and survey it; Acts relinquishing the territory of Columbia to the federal government; and laws of the United States pertaining to the District of Columbia. Bryan 73-74. Sabin 27004. AI 5436 [5].
Hammond, J[ames] H.
51, [1] pp. Stitched. Light to moderate foxing. Rubberstamp and gum label in blank upper margin of title page; rubberstamp on page [3], touching but not obscuring three letters in the caption title. Good+. The South Carolina Governor and Senator, who believed that slavery was the cornerstone of civilization, defends the Peculiar Institution against its indictment by Clarkson and the English abolitionists. "You will say that man cannot hold property in man. The answer is, that he can and actually does hold property in his fellow all the world over, in a variety of forms, and has always done so." Hammond cites the expected scriptural authority for this provocative remark and "repudiates, as ridiculously absurd, that much-lauded but no where accredited dogma of Mr. Jefferson, that 'all men are born equal'.'" Hammond's spirited argument was widely distributed in the South and reprinted, with additional letters, in Charleston in the same year. FIRST EDITION. III Turnbull 6. AI 45-2988 [5]. Work 315. LCP 4543.
[Election of 1880]
Metamorphic card, 3-1/4" x 5-3/8" fully opened. Richly colored, light wear, Very Good. The unopened illustration depicts a dignified, serious Hancock as a rooster in elaborate feathers. But when opened, Hancock has lost his feathers, is emaciated and bleeding from the mouth. The caption reads, "November 2nd. | 1880 | Hancock Hancock Boo-Hoo-Hoo." Winfield Scott Hancock, a decorated Civil War general and a hero of Gettysburg, was the losing Democrats' presidential candidate in 1880, opposing Republican James A. Garfield. The verso, entitled 'Rhymes for Young Democrats,' brilliantly skewers the overt racism of the Democratic Party. It begins: "Sing a song of shotguns, | Pocket full of knives, | Four-and- twenty black men, | Running for their lives; | When the polls are open, | Shut the nigger's mouth, | Isn't that a bully way | To make a solid South?" OCLC 32320004 [1- Brown] as of August 2024.
Yancey, William Lowndes
8pp. Stitched and partly uncut. Short tears at blank extremities. Good+. Yancey writes, "So many demands have been made by my friends for copies of the correspondence between Mr. Clingman and myself, pending the late difficulty between us, and of the basis of the settlement of the affair, that I have thought it best to print the following memoranda for circulation among them." Sensitive Southern gentlemen avoid a duel over Yancey's remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives, that he "had nothing to say with someone with the head and heart of the gentleman from North Carolina." Clingman took umbrage, inferring that Yancey was referring to him. The delicate, formal exchange of notes, with participation of seconds, Yancey's retraction, and Clingman's conciliatory words, are printed. Not in Sabin, AI, LCP. OCLC has not differentiated between originals and facsimiles, as of July 2024.
Kent, James
7" x 10-3/4". Printed certificate on thick paper, the New York State seal at the bottom left corner. Printed in typescript with several fonts, completed in ink manuscript [as noted by the brackets]and signed in ink by James Kent. Text surrounded by an ornamental rectangular border. Acknowledgment in ink manuscript on verso, dated and signed by Isaac L. Kip, Assistant Registrar. Very Good. James Kent [1763-1847] the son of Moss Kent, a lawyer, is considered one of the great jurists of any era. Admitted to the New York Bar in 1785, he was a State Assemblyman, the first professor of law in Columbia College, Governor Jay's appointee as Master in Chancery; New York's Chief Justice; and a member of the 1821 State Constitutional Convention, where he unsuccessfully opposed raising the property qualification for Negroes. His four-volume COMMENTARIES ON AMERICAN LAW is a foundation of American jurisprudence. Tallmadge became a Congressman and author of the Tallmadge Amendment, which would have prohibited Slavery in the contemplated State of Missouri.
[Wirz, Henry]
850pp. Bound in modern cloth with gilt-lettered spine label on black morocco. Preceded by an XXXVIII-page Index of House Executive Documents at this Session of Congress. Text clean and Fine. Responsible for Sumter Prison at Andersonville, Wirz was blamed for its horrendous conditions. He was tried after the War for atrocities. Andersonville had a high mortality rate, lacked food and medical supplies, was severely overcrowded and utterly unsanitary. In mid-1865 Harper's Weekly published photographs of the Union prisoners, stimulating calls for the punishment of those responsible. Wirz was found guilty of conspiring to injure Union prisoners, and of eleven counts of murder. He was hanged November 10, 1865, the only man tried and executed for war crimes during the Civil War. The Wirz case was a precedent, cited after the First and Second World Wars, for individual responsibility of soldiers in wartime; and for the invalidity of a claim that due execution of an order absolved the soldier of accountability for his actions. This enormous record is the most complete report of the charges, evidence, testimony, and arguments. II Harv. Law Cat. 1228. Marke 977. Not in McDade.
[Election of 1864]
Broadside ticket, 2-3/4" x 3-7/8." Small mounting remnants on blank verso. Very Good. "Sierra County Republican ticket for the election of 1864, in which the national Republican Party temporarily adopted the name National Union Party. Henry Molineux was treasurer of Sierra County, Calif. (of which Downieville is the seat); see N.Z.R. Molyneux, History, genealogical and biographical, of the Molyneux families (Syracuse, N.Y.: C.W. Bardeen, 1904), p. 99-102." [OCLC entry.] OCLC 78931206 [Brown, BYU] as of July 2024. The Lincoln Financial Foundation also owns a copy.
[Wirz, Henry]
850pp. Bound in contemporary Congressional sheep [rubbed, chip at spine, hinges starting, gilt-lettered morocco spine labels]. Preceded by an XXXVIII-page Index of House Executive Documents at this Session of Congress. Text clean and Fine. Responsible for Sumter Prison at Andersonville, Wirz was blamed for its horrendous conditions. He was tried after the War for atrocities. Andersonville had a high mortality rate, lacked food and medical supplies, was severely overcrowded and utterly unsanitary. In mid-1865 Harper's Weekly published photographs of the Union prisoners, stimulating calls for the punishment of those responsible. Wirz was found guilty of conspiring to injure Union prisoners, and of eleven counts of murder. He was hanged November 10, 1865, the only man tried and executed for war crimes during the Civil War. The Wirz case was a precedent, cited after the First and Second World Wars, for individual responsibility of soldiers in wartime; and for the invalidity of a claim that due execution of an order absolved the soldier of accountability for his actions. This enormous record is the most complete report of the charges, evidence, testimony, and arguments. II Harv. Law Cat. 1228. Marke 977. Not in McDade.
