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David M. Lesser

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AN APPEAL TO THE STATE. BY CENSOR. TRUTH IS GREAT, AND IT WILL TRIUMPH

[Cooper, Thomas] Caption title [as issued], 23pp + [1 blank]. Light scattered foxing. Good+ to Very Good. [bound with] REPLY TO CENSOR, OR AN APPEAL TO THE GOOD SENSE OF THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, BY JUSTICE. Columbia, S.C.: Printed at the Times and Gazette Office. [1831?]. 16pp, foxed moderately, Good+. The two items bound together in attractive modern marbled wrappers. These are scarce pamphlets on the tumultuous career of Thomas Cooper. During his Presidency of the College of Charleston, Cooper "was the target of clerical attack, chiefly on the part of Presbyterians. The controversy was an episode in the age-long conflict between science and theology, but was accentuated by Cooper's ill-concealed contempt for the clergy as a class. He was nominally successful in the struggle, not so much because of any general acceptance of the principles of biblical criticism and the doctrines of materialism that he championed, but because of his identification with the extreme state-rights party" [DAB]. The first pamphlet is a vitriolic personal attack on Cooper himself and his religious views. The author identifies himself only by saying he is "not a Clergyman-- and, as far as I interfere with politics at all-- I have gone with the State-Right's party." Censor blames Cooper for the "spirit" that "has, of late years, been extending itself over our State, unfriendly to our religious institutions, and insulting to the feelings and opinions which have been rendered sacred to us." The second pamphlet, with an "Appendix by Anti-Censor," defends Cooper: "If a religious test is made for the Presidency of the South Carolina College, there will be no end to the train of evils it will inevitably produce. A precedent will be thereby established which will one by one take away all the liberties of the people and give them to the priests." Sabin states: "Defense of Dr. Thomas Cooper, President of South Carolina College, attacked on account of his religious opinions. Cooper was tried before a committee of the trustees in 1832 and acquitted, but resigned in 1834." FIRST EDITIONS. Appeal: II Turnbull 225. Not located on OCLC or the online AAS site as of February 2024. Reply: II Turnbull 285. OCLC records six locations under two accession numbers as of February 2024. Not at the AAS online site.
  • $875
book (2)

FOUR SEPARATE IMPRINTS, BOUND TOGETHER, RELATING TO THE TRIAL OF CHARLES ANGUS ON AN INDICTMENT FOR THE WILFUL MURDER OF MARGARET BURNS

[Angus, Charles] Four imprints in contemporary binding [hinges cracked, extremities rubbed]. Light to moderate foxing throughout. Good+. 1. THE TRIAL OF CHARLES ANGUS, ESQ. ON AN INDICTMENT FOR THE WILFUL MURDER OF MARGARET BURNS, AT THE ASSIZES HELD AT LANCASTER, ON FRIDAY, 2D SEPT. 1808, BEFORE THE HON. SIR. ALAN CHAMBRE, ONE OF THE JUSTICES OF HIS MAJESTY'S COURT OF COMMON PLEAS. TAKEN IN SHORT HAND BY WILLIAM JONES, JUN. Liverpool: Printed by William Jones. . . [1808]. [4], 288 pp. Last page dirty but legible. 2. A VINDICATION OF THE OPINIONS DELIVERED IN EVIDENCE BY THE MEDICAL WITNESSES FOR THE CROWN, ON A LATE TRIAL AT LANCASTER, FOR MURDER. Liverpool: Printed by and for W. Jones. . . 1808. [5], 8-88 pp. Upper blank corners heavily browned. 3. Carson, James: REMARKS ON A LATE PUBLICATION, ENTITLED "A VINDICATION OF THE OPINIONS DELIVERED IN EVIDENCE BY THE MEDICAL WITNESSES FOR THE CROWN, ON A LATE TRIAL AT LANCASTER." BY JAMES CARSON, M.D. Liverpool: Printed by W. Jones. . . 1808. [3], 8-136 pp. Upper blank corners browned. 4. Campbell, D.: REFLECTIONS OCCASIONED BY THE PERUSAL OF A PAMPHLET, ENTITLED, A VINDICATION OF THE OPINIONS DELIVERED BY THE MEDICAL WITNESSES FOR THE CROWN, (THE PROSECUTION) ON A LATE TRIAL AT LANCASTER. BY D. CAMPBELL, M.D. Liverpool: Printed by W. Jones. . . 1809. 53, [1] pp. A "hole in the stomach" killed Margaret Burns. Did Angus cause her death, by deliberately giving her a "solution of corrosive sublimate of Mercury" to drink? Or, as Angus alleged, did Margaret suffer from a chronic "obstruction in her female evacuations," which, when treated, did "rupture the coats of her stomach"? Much medical controversy accompanied the verdict: NOT GUILTY. "In a case that aroused much controversy, in September 1808, Liverpool merchant Charles Angus was accused of poisoning Margaret Burns, his deceased wife's half-sister and his children's governess. Burns was believed to be pregnant at the time of her death and Angus was charged with attempting to induce an abortion through the use of oil of Savin, a poison. Medical experts testified that, upon autopsy, no significant amount of the poison could be found in the body. Angus was found not guilty" [online site, National Library of Medicine].
  • $600
book (2)
book (2)

STATE OF MISSOURI V. WILLIAM W. WILLS. THE CRIME: “DEALING WITH SLAVES WITHOUT THE CONSENT IN WRITING OF THE MASTER OWNER OR OVERSEER OF SAID SLAVE.”

Two printed broadside documents, completed in ink manuscript. [1] "KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, THAT WILLIAM W. WILLS AS PRINCIPAL, AND JOHN H. WILLS AS SECURITY, ARE HELD AND FIRMLY BOUND UNTO THE STATE OF MISSOURI IN THE PENAL SUM OF ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. . ." 8" x 12-1/2." Old horizontal, light foxing along folds. Very Good. [2] SUMMONS TO ELISHA STANLEY, commanded to appear at Circuit Court, City of Fayette, to testify in "The State of Missouri as Plaintiff, and William W. Wills is Defendant on the part of the Plaintiff." Oblong 7-7/8" x 6-1/4." Text with decorative left margin border. Very Good. Docketed on verso, with the note by Sheriff Boyce M. McCrary that he "Served the within Subpoena by reading the same to the within named Elasha Stanley, on the 18th day of November 1859." Like other Slave States, Missouri discouraged any suggestion that Slaves could conduct themselves as free persons. Its statute, entitled, "Dealing with Slaves," prohibited the master, or owner of a slave or overseer to permit the slave to "go at large, upon a hiring of his own time, or to act, or deal as a free person'." Such laws encompassed a wide swath of activity: "how slaves traveled between plantations, including how long a slave could remain on another's property and how many visiting slaves were allowed at a particular property at any one time. . . To further limit slaves' interaction with free society, the legislature restricted commercial dealings between a slave and a free man, white or black; to do business with a slave required permission of the owner. Fearing slave escapes, territorial legislators included provisions designed to decrease these attempts. These conditions put limitations on the activities of slaves and free blacks, placing the responsibility of slave control on the owners" [Missouri State Archives, Missouri's Early Slave Laws on line].
book (2)

VALUATION OF DONNINGTON CASTLE PLANTATION. NEGROES, STOCK &C. TAKEN BY US THIS 21ST OF MAY 1789 AT THE REQUEST OF WILLIAM MITCHELL & GEORGE CUTHBERT ESQUIRES ATTORNIES TO SIR JOHN DALLING BAR’T

Six elephant folio pages, written entirely in ink manuscript on thick paper. One bifolium and one separate leaf of equal size, 14-3/4" x 21-1/2." Docketed on page [6]. The first four pages are a bifolium attached at the upper left corner to a separate leaf with binding string. Old folds, with fold splits archivally repaired. Repair at page 5 affects three text words. Minor edgewear. Very Good. Housed in a gilt-lettered modern custom clamshell case measuring 8-3/4" x 12-1/4." The owner of this large Jamaica plantation, located in St. Mary Parish, was Sir John Dalling, 1st Baronet [1731-1798]. He was Jamaica's Acting Governor from 1772 to 1774, Governor from 1777 to 1782, and Commander-in-Chief of Madras (1784-1786). Its main productions were sugar and rum. The first three pages list, alphabetically by first [and only] names, more than two hundred fifty slaves, with adjacent columns for the "Condition" and "Occupation" of each. A fourth column, untitled, lists the value of each such slave. Values range from zero or $10 to $200.On this large and evidently self-sufficient plantation, the diversity of occupations is especially interesting: field laborer, mason, carpenter, washerwoman, cook, basket maker, driver, cooper, mule man, sawyer, grass cutter, "care of children," and others. The "condition" of each slave is evaluated, with such notations as "able," "old," "weakly," "disorder'd," "young," "sickly," "superannuated." An inventory and valuation of the estate's livestock and acreage, signed by John Hiatt and Hector McLean, begins at the bottom of page [3] and continues on page [4]. At the center of page [4] is a separate inventory of twenty slaves at "Donnington Castle Penn" dated May 22, 1789, with values of each. A sworn statement appears on page [5] acknowledging that Hiatt and McLean, acting on the orders of Dalling's attorneys, "were called upon and required.to Value and appraise the Land, Negroes, and other Slaves and Stock of and belonging to the said Plantation, and that they did in compliance with such request make the valuation and appraisement."
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PERSECUTION. THE CASE OF CHARLES PIGOTT: CONTAINED IN THE DEFENCE HE HAD PREPARED, AND WHICH WOULD HAVE BEEN DELIVERED BY HIM ON HIS TRIAL, IF THE GRAND JURY HAD NOT THROWN OUT THE BILL PREFERRED AGAINST HIM. BY CHARLES PIGOTT, AUTHOR OF STRICTURES ON THE NEW POLITICAL TENETS OF EDMUND BURKE, TREACHERY NO CRIME, AND OTHER WELL KNOWN POPULAR PUBLICATIONS`

vi, 52 pp, without the half title. Disbound, several pages with upper blank margins moderately spotted. Good+. The publisher, Daniel Eaton, was arrested in December 1793 for publishing an alleged libel comparing King of England to a Game Cock. He was acquitted in early 1794. Pigott began his adult life as a "libertine gentleman, whose reformation took place amid the efflorescence of a short-lived culture of radicalism in the London of the 1790s, a change which signalled his involvement in an attempt to reform not only himself, but also the entire political order of British society" [Mee, Libertines and Radicals in the 1790s: The Strange Case of Charles Pigott. Pages 185-203 in Cryle, LIBERTINE ENLIGHTENMENT (Hampshire and NY: Palgrave Macmillan 2003)]. "Pigott was arrested after an incident at the New London coffee house involving the physician William Hodgson. The official indictment claimed that the two men began proposing republican toasts in their private box after a bout of drinking. The charge revolved around the accusation that Hodgson had denounced George III as a 'German hog butcher.' The proprietor of the coffee house sent for the constables. Hodgson and Pigott were arraigned for uttering seditious words. Early in October, Pigott's lawyer, John Martin, discovered mistakes in the warrant. Pigott also complained to the bench that the excessive amount of bail set contravened the Bill of Rights. A jury at the Old Bailey threw out the charges against Pigott on 2 November. While in confinement, Pigott wrote his defence, later published as Persecution. His account of his evening with Hodgson was of two friends indulging 'in that openness and freedom of discourse natural to persons, who harbour no criminal or secret intentions'. More generally, he staked his defence on Whig principles: 'freedom of speech is an english man's prerogative, engrafted on our Constitution, by magna charta and the bill of rights'." [Mee: Print, Publicity, and Popular Radicalism in the 1790s, pages 131-148. (Cambridge: 2016)]. FIRST EDITION. II Harv. Law Cat. 355. ESTC T43881.
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TEXAS REPUBLIC DOCUMENT, ENTIRELY IN INK MANUSCRIPT: PROMINENT TEXANS POST BAIL FOR ANOTHER PROMINENT TEXAN, ACCUSED OF MURDERING HENRY M. CAROTHERS

Single leaf, entirely in ink manuscript, 7-5/8" x 12-3/4." Signed in ink by Edwin Waller, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence; Andrew Jackson Bell, Texas legislator, Sheriff of Austin County, and large landowner; John York, Indian fighter and soldier in the Texas Revolution; William Pettus, active in the Texas Revolution, large landowner, and participant in early Texas struggles for independence [online Texas State Historical Association]. James A. York, who participated in the capture of San Antonio in 1835 [Historical Marker Database]; Thomas H. Bell; J.K. McCreary, Chief Justice of Austin County. Archival tape repairs to horizontal split and short closed tear [minimal loss]. The signers posted bail for Andrew Jackson Bell, accused of murdering Henry Carothers. We surmise that Bell was acquitted. His obituary calls him a veteran of F.W. Johnson's Company in the Texas War of Independence; he was elected sheriff of Austin County in 1850 and Representative to the State Legislature in 1854. During the Civil War, Bell was the enrolling officer for the Western District of Austin County. His namesake, President Andrew Jackson, was purportedly the best man at the wedding of Bell's parents. The document reads in full: "The Republic of Texas, County of Austin: Know all men by these presents that we Andrew Jackson Bell, James A. York, John York, Thomas H. Bell, and William Pettus all of the Republic and County aforesaid are held firmly bound unto Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas aforesaid, and his successors in office in the sum of forty thousand dollars, for the payment of which, well and truly to be made, we bind ourselves and each of us, our and each of our heirs, executors, administrators and assigns, jointly and severally, firmly by these presents. Signed and sealed (with our scrolls for seals) this the nineteenth day of April in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-three. "The conditions of the above obligations are such that, whereas the above bounden Andrew Jackson Bell, was this day (April 19th 1843) brought before the Honorable J. K. McCrary Chief Justice of said county, and Edwin Waller, Esq., a Justice of the Peace in and for said county, on a writ of Habeas Corpus, and after having the evidence against said Andrew Jackson Bell, on a charge for the murder of Henry M. Carothers, on an indictment and true bill found by the Grand Jury of the County of Austin, at the April Term 1843 of the Hon. District Court in and for said County, the said J. K. McCreary Chief Justice and Edwin Waller Esq. Justice of the Peace, assisting the said J. K. McCreary Chief Justice, ordered, that the said Andrew Jackson Bell be admitted to bail in the amount of forty thousand dollars. Now if the above bounden Andrew Jackson Bell shall appear in proper person at the next term of the Honorable District Court in and for said County and from day to day. . . and that he will not depart from the said court without leave then this obligation to be null and void otherwise to remain in full force and effect. [signed] A. J. Bell John York J. A .York Thos. H. Bell Wm. Pettus J. K. McCreary, Chief Justice AC Edwin Waller, Justice PAC.