Item #35811 BY HIS EXCELLENCY SAMUEL WARD KING, GOVERNOR, CAPTAIN GENERAL, AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. A PROCLAMATION. WHEREAS I HAVE THIS DAY RECEIVED FROM HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN TYLER, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. Dorr Rebellion.

BY HIS EXCELLENCY SAMUEL WARD KING, GOVERNOR, CAPTAIN GENERAL, AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. A PROCLAMATION. WHEREAS I HAVE THIS DAY RECEIVED FROM HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN TYLER, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES...

[Providence? 1842]. Broadside, 11-1/2" x 20". Printed in three columns. Woodcut illustration of Rhode Island seal, with the word 'Hope' printed at head of title. Old light folds, several fox spots. Good+.

Governor King's folio broadside publishes President Tyler's Letter of April 11, 1842, promising that American troops would support Rhode Island's regular government against insurgent Dorrites; and John Whipple's Letter warning that, if the Dorrites succeed, "the same sure law of force will inevitably prostrate every State Government in the Union." Whipple led the anti-Dorr Party.
"The Dorr Rebellion focused national attention on the question whether or not a majority of the people may rightfully frame a new government regardless of the provisions of the constituted government. Leaders of the disfranchised populace in Rhode Island had met and framed a 'People's Constitution' and proceeded to elect a government independent of the incumbent regime" [Peterson, The Great Triumvirate 338]. Acting under his constitutional duty to "guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government", Tyler asserted that the United States would continue to recognize "the existing Government of the State" as the lawful government of Rhode Island "until I shall be advised in regular manner, that it has been altered and abolished, and another substituted in its place, by legal and peaceable proceedings..."
DeSimone & Schofield, Broadsides of the Dorr Rebellion 27. AI 42-4273 [1- Yale]. Item #35811

Price: $850.00

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