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John Marshall’s “Life of George Washington”
and Companion Atlas with Hand-colored Maps
JOHN MARSHALL. [GEORGE WASHINGTON],
Books, The Life of George Washington Commander in Chief of the American Forces, During the War which Established the Independence of his Country and First President of the United States, Compiled Under the Inspection of the Honourable Bushrod Washington, From Original Papers Bequeathed to him by his Deceased Relative, 2nd edition, in two volumes. Philadelphia: James Crissy and Thomas Cowperthwait, 1840. 982 pp. plus index, 5½ x 9 in. Both have pencil inscription on blank fly leaf “A. Seeley 1851 Presented by T.C. Gladding.” Rebound; very good, some foxing toward the front. OCLC 183328030. With: Atlas to Marshall’s Life of Washington, Philadelphia: J. Crissy, [1832], 10 hand-colored maps. Ex-Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M. of Massachusetts bookplate on front paste-down. Black cloth spine and corners, original green boards with label. Internally fine. OCLC 191237946.
Chief Justice John Marshall’s magisterial biography of George Washington was originally a five-volume set. This 1840 publication, revised and issued in two volumes, also includes the 1832 companion atlas of maps relating to the Revolutionary War.
Item #22477, $1,250
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Opposing the African Slave Trade - 1790 New Haven Sermon
JAMES DANA,
Pamphlet. The African Slave Trade. A Discourse Delivered in the City of New-Haven, September 9, 1790, before The Connecticut Society for The Promotion of Freedom. Half-title: Doctor Dana’s Sermon on the African Slave Trade. New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1791. Evans 23308. 33 pp., 4¾ x 8¼ in.
“Our late warfare was expressly founded on such principles as these: ‘All men are created equal: They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’.... Those who profess to understand and regard the principles of liberty should cheerfully unite to abolish slavery....”
In 1784, Connecticut passed a law that all slaves born after March 1, 1784, were to be freed before or when they reached the age of 25. In 1790, a group of clergymen, lawyers, and academics formed the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom and for the Relief of Persons Unlawfully Holden in Bondage to support the law. Yale University president and Congregationalist minister Ezra Stiles, formerly a slave owner, served as the society’s first president. Here, Rev. Doctor James Dana reviews the history and extent of slavery in the world. Calling it unjust, unchristian, and against the principles of the American Revolution, he urges abolition. Dana’s sermon, and those preached at the Society by Jonathan Edwards Jr., Theodore Dwight, and others, were among the most popular anti-slavery literature from the period. However, the Connecticut Society lapsed and disappeared after the turn of the century.
Item #24464, $1,900
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First Edition of FDR’s Committee for Civil Service Improvement Report, Signed by Three Supreme Court Justices
[FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT] [SUPREME COURT],
Signed Book. Report of President’s Committee on Civil Service Improvement. [Washington, D.C.]
This presentation copy to William H. McReynolds, the Liaison Officer for Personnel Management, is signed by all the committee members, including the chairman, Justice Stanley Reed, Justice Felix Frankfurter, Justice Frank Murphy, Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, Leonard D. White, General Robert E. Wood, and Cooper Union President Gano Dunn.
Item #22512, $3,500
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Unique Sea Mosses Book Sold at the New York Metropolitan Fair to Benefit Sick and Wounded Union Troops
[CIVIL WAR]. ANNA BIGELOW,
Autograph Manuscript Signed unique calligraphy book with illustrations, pressed sea weeds, and hand lettered four lines of verse titled ‘Sea Weeds.’ New York, N.Y, 1864. 7½ x 10½ on 60-plus pages with 31 moss examples interleaved.
“call us not weeds, we are flowers of the Sea.”
Item #24170, $1,750
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1865 General Orders,
Including Many Regarding Lincoln’s Assassination
[CIVIL WAR - WAR DEPARTMENT],
Book. Bound collection of separately printed General Orders from the Adjutant General’s office for 1865. Containing 168 of 175 consecutive orders, and a 94-page index at front. Bound for Major General William Scott Ketchum, with his name in gilt on the spine and his markings or wartime notes on numerous pages. 4¾ x 7 in.
Item #22265, $4,800
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Boston Congregational Society Sermons
THEODORE PARKER,
Signed Book. Two sermons preached before the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society in Boston...On leaving old and entering new place of worship. Boston: 1853. 1st ed. 8vo. 56pp. Inscribed by Parker.
Item #21288, $950
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The Gettysburg Address
[ABRAHAM LINCOLN],
Book. Includes a foldout map of the planned cemetery and a copy of Lincoln’s dedication. Published in Harrisburg, 1864. Fair condition.
Report of the Select Committee Relative to the Soldier’s National Cemetery, Together with the Accompanying Documents, as Reported to the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, March 31, 1864.
Item #21371, $1,750
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The Psalms of David, Carried in a Rhode Island Revolutionary War Unit in 1776
[REVOLUTIONARY WAR; RHODE ISLAND]. ISAAC WATTS,
Book. The Psalms of David, Imitated in the Language of the New Testament: and Applied to the Christian State and Worship (title supplied). Norwich, [Connecticut]: Alexander Robertson, James Robertson, and Trumbull, 1774. Approx. 300 pp., 3 x 5 x 1¼ in.
Bibles, psalm books, or other printed works carried during the Revolution are rare on the market. This edition appears to be scarce: the last offering we find was by Goodspeed’s in 1934.
Item #24693, ON HOLD
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General Washington Orders Declaration of Independence Read to Army in New York
[DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE],
Manuscript Orderly Book. Headquarters [New York City], [July 8, 1776 – August 21, 1776]. Containing two overlapping sequences in different hands: one 145-page sequence runs from July [9], 1776 to August 21, 1776, and another 13-page segment (written from the other end of the book) runs from July 8-13, 1776. 158 pp. 7½ x 6 in. Both versions vary slightly from the published text of Washington’s General Orders of July 9. This volume, with Brigade and Regimental orders, was either kept by battalion adjutant Aaron Comstock or an orderly sergeant in one of Gold S. Silliman’s eight companies enlisted in Connecticut shortly before. This is likely the battalion’s first orderly book after arriving in New York with approximately 415 men.
“the Honble Continental Congress … haveing been plead to Desolve Connection Between this country & great Britain & to declare the united Colonys of North America free & Independent States the Several Brigades are to be Drawn us [up] this Evening on their Respective Parades at 6 oclock when the Deleration of Congress Shewing the grounds & Reasons of the Measures to be Read with Laudable [audible] Voice the genl [George Washington] Hopes that this important Point will serve as a fresh incentive to Every officer and soldier to act with fidelity & courage as knowing that now the Peace and Safety of this country Depends under god solely on the success of our arms....” (July 9, 1776)
…the gel being informed to his great surprize that a Report prevails & Industrously spread far and wide that Lord how [British General Lord William Howe] has made <145> Propositions of Peace Calculated by disguiseing Persons most Probably To Lull us into a fatal Security his Duty obliges him to Declare that No such offer has been made by Lord how but on the Contrarary from the Best inteligence he can Procure the army may Expect atack as soon as the wind and tide proves favorable He hopes theirfore every mans mind & arms may be Prepared for action and when caled to it shew our enemies & the whole world that free men Contendin for their own Land are Superior to any Mercenaries on Earth.... (August 20, 1776)
Remarkable manuscript book containing two separate versions of Washington’s General Orders of July 9, 1776, announcing to the Continental Army in New York that Congress had formally declared the 13 colonies to be independent of Great Britain. Of course, Washington’s name is notably absent on the Declaration of Independence, as he was in New York preparing to face the music of the inevitable British invasion.
Item #21461.99, $115,000
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A Scarce Record of Thomas Dorr’s Trial for Treason
After His Failed Revolt
JOSEPH S. PITMAN. [DORR WAR],
Book. Report of the Trial of Thomas Wilson Dorr, for Treason; Including the Testimony at Length...Together with the Sentence of the Court, and the Speech of Mr. Dorr Before Sentence. Providence, R.I., B.F. Moore, 1844. 1st ed., 115 pp., 5 1/3 x 8¾ in.
Item #22542, $1,250
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A General Account of … Using Atomic Energy
for Military Purposes
H.D. SMYTH,
A General Account of … Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes Under the Auspices of the United States Government 1940-1945. Written at the Request of Major General L. R. Groves, United States Army... Washington, DC: Superintendent of Documents. (1945). Book, 1945. 182 pp, illus. with 2 graphs. With ownership signature of “Erwin Hiebert” twice.
Item #20807, $750
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The Pentagon Papers:
William Bundy’s Annotated Copy
[VIETNAM WAR],
Books. The Pentagon Papers. Boston: Beacon Press, 1971-1972. First Editions. Five paperback books, volumes I-IV in green printed covers, volume V in orange. 5¾ x 9 inches each. Pages varies by volume. Volume V (Critical Essays, edited by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn) has a Beacon Press review copy slip taped to the half-title and an address label paperclipped to the same page. The label is addressed to Bundy as editor of Foreign Affairs and has a handwritten date, “9/25/72.”
William Bundy’s 5-volume set of the “Senator Gravel Edition” of the Pentagon Papers, with annotations, marginal notes, and two legal-size pages with handwritten notes arranged chronologically.
Item #21291, $3,500
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South Carolina’s Reconstruction Governor’s Copy of Reconstruction Acts, Including Ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment
[RECONSTRUCTION ERA],
Acts of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina, Passed at the Special Session of 1868. Columbia, SC: John W. Denny, 1868. First Edition. Contemporary red morocco gilt, spine in 5 compartments with 4 raised bands, gilt lettering in 2, gilt decorations in others. “Gov. R. K. Scott” in gilt lettering on front board. 165 pp., 6 x 8⅞ in.
Excerpt
“Therefore, resolved, That the said proposed amendment to the Constitution be, and the same is hereby, ratified by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina.” (July 9, 1868)
“it shall be the duty of the State Superintendent of Education, to provide, through the School Commissioner of each County, for the enumeration of all the unmarried youth of the State, between the ages of five and eighteen years, classifying them as colored and white, male and female, and he shall report the same through the Governor of the State to the General Assembly at its next regular session.” (September 15, 1868)
Item #27064.01, $9,500
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