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Early Republic (1784 - c.1830) |
Thomas Jefferson Signed Act of Congress Authorizing Copper Coinage (the First Legal Tender Produced by U.S. Government)
THOMAS JEFFERSON,
Printed Document Signed, as Secretary of State, “An Act to provide for a copper coinage,” May 8, 1792, Philadelphia. 1 p., 9⅝ x 15 in.
“That the director of the mint…purchase a quantity of copper...and…cause the copper...to be coined at the mint into cents and half cents...thence to issue into circulation….
That after the expiration of six calendar months from the time when there shall have been paid into the treasury by the said director, in cents and half cents, a sum not less than fifty thousand dollars … no copper coins or pieces whatsoever, except the said cents and half cents, shall pass current as money, or shall be paid, or offered to be paid or received in payment for any debt … and all copper coins or pieces, except the said cents and half cents, which shall be paid or offered to be paid or received in payment contrary to the prohibition aforesaid, shall be forfeited, and every person by whom any of them shall have been so paid … shall also forfeit the sum of ten dollars…”
Item #27505, $235,000
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Ratification of The Bill of Rights
[BILL OF RIGHTS],
Newspaper. Columbian Centinel, March 14, 1792. Boston, Mass.: Benjamin Russell. 4 pp., 10½ x 16½ in.
Item #25046, SOLD — please inquire about other items
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Adams Defends U.S. Constitution, First French Edition
[CONSTITUTION]. JOHN ADAMS,
Défense des Constitutions américaines, ou, de la nécessité d’une balance dans les pouvoirs d’un gouvernement libre. Paris: Chez Buisson, 1792. 2 volumes, 8vo (197 x 124 mm). Half-titles; a fresh, bright copy. Contemporary French paste paper boards, vellum-tipped corners, smooth mottled calf spines gilt, red and green lettering and numbering pieces; some worm damage to joints.
First French edition, issued at a crucial moment in that country’s history, as the Revolution was becoming more radical. In 1792 the French Assembly stripped Louis XVI of his power and declared him a prisoner of the nation. They called together the Convention, in order to draft a new constitution to replace that of the prior year. Adams’s treatise explaining and defending the principles of the constitution of the government of the United States would have been a timely and informative work for the emerging French government.
Item #26600.99, SOLD — please inquire about other items
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Thomas Jefferson Pays Import Duty on Famous Louis Chantrot Obelisk Clock
THOMAS JEFFERSON,
Manuscript Document Signed, October 17, 1791, [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. 1 p., 8 x 13 in.
This declaration indicates that Thomas Jefferson imported a clock, which arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Minerva under the command of Captain Wood from Le Havre, France, on October 17, 1791. On May 12, 1792, Jefferson paid an import duty of $7.52 on the clock according to the provisions of the Tariff of 1790.
Consisting of a pair of black marble obelisks between which a brass clock was suspended, Jefferson commissioned this piece in the Spring of 1790 to replace a similar one stolen from his Paris residence. An unusual feature of the clock is the use of a complex pinwheel escapement, often used in regulators of the finest quality in that period but rarely used in mantel clocks. He later had it mounted on a shelf above the foot of his bed. Susan Stein, the Richard Gilder Senior Curator at Monticello, described the obelisk clock as “arguably one of the most important and interesting objects at Monticello.” After Jefferson’s death, his daughter Martha called it the object “I should have prized beyond anything on earth.”[1] The original clock was passed down through the Jefferson family until it was donated to Monticello in 2016.
This is a rare record of payment of the tariffs that funded the nascent federal government, in effect bringing together Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, in the temporary capital of Philadelphia.
[1] Martha Jefferson Randolph to her daughter, February 13, 1827, quoted in Sarah Butler Wister and Agnes Irwin, eds., Worthy Women of Our First Century (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1877), 59. Randolph wrote, “The marble clock I should have prized beyond anything on earth, and if, in our circumstances, I had felt myself justifiable in retaining a luxury of that value, that clock, in preference to everything else but the immediate furniture of his bedroom, I should have retained. However, in addition to the loss of the clock, which I regret more bitterly since I know how near we were getting it, let us not alienate so near a relation and friend, who, I dare say, is sorry for it now that it is past.”
Item #27514, $14,000
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Prospectus of Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures
[ALEXANDER HAMILTON],
Newspaper. Gazette of the United States, September 10, 1791. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John Fenno. 4 pp., 10 x 16 in. The prospectus is printed on the front page in three columns.
Contrasting with the agrarian view of many Virginia founding fathers, New Yorker Alexander Hamilton saw an industrial future for the United States. After nearly two years of study and with the aid of Assistant Secretary Tench Coxe, Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton compiled his famed Report on Manufactures at the request of Congress. With the Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, Coxe and Hamilton advocate creating the nation’s first public-private partnership to develop the area around the Great Falls of the Passaic River, using the cataract for power.
Item #30014.06, SOLD — please inquire about other items
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Congress Authorizes a Mint, and President Washington Proclaims the Location of the Permanent Seat of Government
GEORGE WASHINGTON,
Columbian Centinel, April 23, 1791. Newspaper. Boston: Benjamin Russell. 4 pp. (pp. 45-48), 10¼ x 16¼ in
Including two March 3, 1791 Acts of Congress: Resolution to Establish U.S. Mint, and Act that President be requested to report to Congress on “the quantity and situation of lands not claimed by the Indians, nor granted to, nor claimed by any of the citizens of the Unties States within the territory ceded to the United States by the State of North-Carolina, and within the territory of the United States north-west of the river Ohio.” Also the March 30, 1791 Proclamation of Permanent Seat of Government, signed in type by Washington and Jefferson.
Item #30027.45, $3,250
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Thomas Jefferson Signed Act of Congress for Compensating Court Officers, Jurors, and Witnesses
FIRST CONGRESS. [THOMAS JEFFERSON],
Printed Document Signed as Secretary of State. An Act providing compensations for the officers of the Judicial Courts of the United States, and for Jurors and Witnesses, and for other purposes. New York, N.Y., March 3, 1791. Signed in type by George Washington as President, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and John Adams as Vice President, and president of the Senate. 2 pp., 9 x 15 in.
Under the new federal Constitution, the First Congress had the momentous job of creating the laws to govern the various branches of the new government, whether setting up the framework for executive departments such as Treasury and State, establishing its own rules and schedule, or, in this case, creating a federal court system. In its second session (January 4, 1790 through August 12, 1790) Congress passed the Crimes Act, which defined a plethora of federal crimes, punishments, and court procedures. Here in the third session, the Congress provides a schedule of compensation for officers and jurors, as well as a process for scheduling and meeting places for the various federal district courts around the new nation.
Item #26175.99, $19,000
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“An Act to Incorporate the Subscribers to the Bank of the United States”
[GEORGE WASHINGTON],
Newspaper. Gazette of the United States, March 2, 1791. Philadelphia: John Fenno. 4 pp. (765-768), 10½ x 17 in. Includes full text of February 25 Act to Incorporate the Subscribers to the Bank of the United States.
Item #23392, $2,500
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Jefferson-Signed Act of Congress Funding the Federal Government for 1791
THOMAS JEFFERSON,
Document Signed as Secretary of State. An Act making appropriations for the support of government during the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety one, and for other purposes, February 11, 1791. [Philadelphia: Childs and Swaine, 1791]. Signed in type by George Washington as President, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and John Adams as Vice President and President of the Senate. 2 pp., 9¼ x 15 in. Variant of Evans 23860.
Also see the Alexander Hamilton Collection: The Story of the Revolution & Founding.
Secretary of State Jefferson signs an Act making appropriations for the federal government in 1791. The figures cited—expenses of the “civil list” and the War Department—were taken directly from Treasury Secretary Hamilton’s Estimates for 1791 Report to the House of Representatives.
This is the only Jefferson-signed copy known in private hands. The only two known institutional copies are at the Library Company of Philadelphia and the New York Public Library.
Item #23982, SOLD — please inquire about other items
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Early Printing of the Original Twelve Articles of the Bill of Rights
[BILL OF RIGHTS],
Acts Passed at the First [-Third] Session of the Congress of the United States of America, Begun and Held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the Fourth of March, in the Year M,DCC,LXXXIX. Philadelphia: Printed by Francis Childs and John Swaine, 1791. 3 volumes bound in one, 8vo (368 x 305 mm, uncut). Library stamp on B1 of the first session, repair to lower right corner of Yy4 in the third session. Modern quarter morocco over marbled boards.
Early reprint of Childs and Swaine’s first official printing, which was issued in New York in 1789. This issue appeared in Philadelphia after the nation’s capital was moved there, and the printers had set up shop. All early printings are scarce, especially those of the first three sessions.
Item #26629.99, $20,000
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Harvard’s 1791 Graduating Students and Theses, Dedicated to Governor John Hancock and Lieutenant Governor Samuel Adams
HARVARD COLLEGE,
Broadside. List of Graduating Students and Theses for Disputation. Boston, Massachusetts: Samuel Hall, 1791. 1 p., 18 x 22 in.
Interesting broadside in Latin issued for Harvard University’s 1791 commencement lists Latinized names of 27 graduating students. Among the graduates are New Hampshire Justice John Harris (1769-1845); U.S. Representative Thomas Rice (1768-1854); and Henry Dana Ward (1768-1817), youngest son of General Artemas Ward (1727-1800), who initially commanded the patriot army around Boston in 1775.
Item #24462, $1,500
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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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The Justice Department’s First Publication: Attorney General Edmund Randolph’s Suggestions to Improve the New Federal Judiciary, Including Supreme Court Fixes
EDMUND RANDOLPH,
Report of the Attorney-General. Read in the House of Representatives, December 31, 1790. Philadelphia: Francis Childs & John Swaine, 1791. 32 pp., Folio 8 x 13 in.
The House of Representatives asked Attorney General Edmund Randolph to report on the working of the system established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. Randolph responded with this report, delivered on December 27, 1790, provided criticisms and suggestions that became a blueprint to improve the Federal judiciary. Specifically, Randolph wanted Congress to assert the exclusive jurisdiction of federal courts in certain areas; to relieve Supreme Court justices from the duty of presiding in circuit courts; and to adopt explicitly the common law of the United Kingdom as a basis for judicial decisions unless superseded by specific American legislation.
The latter two-thirds of the report presents Randolph’s proposal for “A Bill for amending the several Acts concerning the Judicial Courts of the United States,” with his explanatory notes. Before Congress acted on Randolph’s suggestions, in August 1792, all of the Supreme Court justices complained in a letter to President George Washington that circuit travel was too onerous. In response, Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1793 (see #26594) that required only one, rather than two, justices to sit in each circuit court. Congress did not relieve the justices of circuit-riding duties until 1911.
Item #26590.99, $18,000
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1790 Massachusetts Newspaper Discussing Nantucket Whalers
[NANTUCKET],
Newspaper, The Columbian Centinel. Boston: Benjamin Russell, December 15, 1790. 4 pp.
Item #30051.015, $450
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Very Early 1790s Naturalization Certificate for Famous French Physician – One the First Persons to Become an American Citizen Under the First Naturalization Act
[IMMIGRATION],
Manuscript Document Signed. Taunton, Bristol County, Massachusetts, Court of Common Pleas, begun and held September 14, 1790. Naturalization Certificate for Dr. Lewis Leprilete. A true copy, penned and signed by Samuel Fales, [between September 14, 1790 and March 19, 1795]. With certification on verso signed by notary public Samuel Cooper, Boston, March 19, 1795, and bearing Cooper’s official embossed paper wafer seal. 2 pp., 7⅝ x 12½ in.
Dr. Lewis Leprilete was one of the few French persons admitted to United States citizenship under the provisions of the first Naturalization Act of 1790. He became the first to advertise cataract extraction in the United States, and the first American author to publicize Benjamin Franklin’s bifocals. Leprilete returned to France, and was forced to serve in the French army in Guadaloupe. He was able to come back to the United States in 1801.
Item #25787, $9,500
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The earliest obtainable printing of George Washington’s Clearest Statement on Religious Freedom: “the Government of the United States...gives to bigotry no sanction...” (SOLD)
[GEORGE WASHINGTON. AMERICAN JUDAICA],
Newspaper. Newport Mercury, September 13, 1790. Newport, Rhode Island: Henry Barber. Moses Seixas’ letter to Washington, and his response, the “Touro Synagogue letter,” both printed in full on page 1. 4 pp., 8⅛ x 13 in. This printing, while sold, is available for appropriate museum loans.
From fifteen Sephardic families who arrived in 1658, Newport’s Jewish community grew to be the largest in the colonies by the Revolutionary War. Many Jews left during the British occupation, but a significant number returned. By the time of Washington’s visit, there were approximately 300 Jews in the thriving Newport community.
On August 17, 1790, on behalf of the Congregation Kahal Kadosh Yeshuat Israel, Newport merchant and banker Moses Seixas wrote an address to welcome George Washington. Seixas’ letter (see below) welcomed Washington to Newport, and congratulated his ascendancy to the Presidency. Seixas also expressed his hopes for the new government’s success and its commitment to religious freedom, that a “government erected by the majesty of the people, a government which to bigotry gives no sanction, persecution no alliance, but generously affording to all Liberty of conscience,” would be created under the new Constitution. Seixas most likely gave Washington the letter on the morning of August 18, when other Clergy and townspeople met with Washington to express their regard for him.
Washington replied later on August 18. He thanked the community for its warm welcome, and assured the congregation that in his administration, “All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship....” He then echoed and built on Seixas’ words, “For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
The original letter is owned by the Morris Morgenstern Foundation, and is on long-term loan to the National Museum of American Jewish History. We were honored to have appraised the original prior to its exhibit, and to have arranged several loans to the museum. Each year, members of the Touro Synagogue in Newport read the letter in a public ceremony.
The Boston Herald of Freedom first published both Seixas’ letter and Washington’s reply on September 7, 1790, followed by a Newport printing on September 9.
Washington echoed Seixas’ words, and built on them, to make his most celebrated statement on religious freedom.
Item #25029, SOLD — please inquire about other items
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George Washington to the Jewish Masons of Newport, Rhode Island
[GEORGE WASHINGTON],
Newspaper. Gazette of the United States. September 11, 1790. New York, John Fenno. 4pp. The letter of the Masons to Washington, and Washington’s letter of August 18, 1790[1] in response, printed in full on page 4. This issue also includes a piece on the “Character of Dr. Franklin.” (p. 2, col. 1).
“Being persuaded that a just application of the principles, on which the masonic fraternity is founded, must be promotive of private virtue and public prosperity, I shall always be happy to advance the interests of the Society, and to be considered by them a deserving Brother.”
Item #30022.06, SOLD — please inquire about other items
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Draft of Thomas Jefferson Circular, Addressing Duties of Consuls & Vice-Consuls
[THOMAS JEFFERSON],
Letter, to Consuls and Vice-Consuls, August 26, 1790, New York. Draft or copy in the hand of a clerk. 2 pp., 7¾ x 9¼ in.
In this letter, Thomas Jefferson provides initial and basic instructions to the consuls and vice-consuls of the United States in European and Caribbean ports. It focuses primarily on the logistics of monitoring and reporting the presence of American vessels in the ports under their authority and on other “political and commercial intelligence as you may think interesting to the United States.” It authorizes consuls and vice-consuls to wear the uniform of the U.S. Navy if they choose to do so and provides details on the features of the uniform. Finally, Jefferson offers advice on maintaining good relationships with the governing authorities. He urges the consuls to avoid minor quarrels and to use the utmost respect in communications with governing officials, “never indulging in any case whatever a single expression which may irritate.”
Item #25721, $3,500
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Jefferson Signs the Funding Act, a Key Part of Hamilton’s Assumption Plan (SOLD)
THOMAS JEFFERSON,
Printed Document Signed as Secretary of State. “An Act making Provision for the Debt of the United States,” New York, N.Y., August 4, 1790. Certified a True Copy by Jefferson with his signature and signed in type by George Washington as President, John Adams as Vice President, and Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg as Speaker of the House. 8 pp., 9 x 13¼ in.
“justice and the support of the public credit require, that provision should be made for fulfilling the engagements of the United States, in respect to their foreign debt, and for funding their domestic debt upon equitable and satisfactory terms.”
Item #23219, SOLD — please inquire about other items
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New York City Commissions a Portrait of George Washington by John Trumbull
RICHARD VARICK,
Autograph Letter Signed, to Tobias Lear, July 19, 1790, New York, NY. 1 p., 7⅞ x 12⅛ in.
In this letter, New York City Mayor Richard Varick requests an opportunity to convey a request from the city to President George Washington to have artist John Trumbull prepare a portrait of him for display at City Hall.
Item #26584, $9,500
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