THE LETTERS OF CURTIUS, WRITTEN BY THE LATE JOHN THOMSON OF PETERSBURG. TO WHICH IS ADDED, A SPEECH DELIVERED BY HIM IN AUG. '95, ON THE BRITISH TREATY. TO WHICH A SHORT SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, IS PREFIXED.
Richmond: Samuel Pleasants, Junior, 1804. xiv], [2 blanks], 78 pp. Early half calf over marbled boards [rubbed, front board detached, rear board starting]. Text clean and Very Good.
Originally published in 1798, this is the second edition with additions. Curtius's Letters, published pseudonymously in the first edition, are to John Marshall who, in his "bad eminence" -- so characterized by Thomson-- as a Virginia Federalist had defended the 1795 Jay Treaty as well as the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Thomson aligned himself with Thomas Jefferson, who led the anti-Federalists and whose personal antipathy to his cousin Marshall was well-known. Thomson's attack on Jay's Treaty brought him widespread notice, for he displayed "remarkable knowledge of the history of his country for one less than twenty years old." At the ripe old age of 22, his Letters to Marshall display a sophisticated understanding of the crucial significance of free speech in a democratic republic, and a refusal to permit limitation on expression for reasons of alleged national security-- here, the quasi-War with France.
Howes T212. Haynes 18398. Servies, Bibliography of John Marshall 1743. Not in McCoy, Harv. Law Cat. Item #33244
Price: $300.00