Ramsay David:

AN ORATION, DELIVERED ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, JULY 4, 1794, IN SAINT MICHAEL'S CHURCH, TO THE INHABITANTS OF CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, BY DAVID RAMSEY [sic], M.D. PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

London: Printed and Sold by Citizen Daniel Isaac Eaton. 1795. 23. [1 blank] pp. Light uniform toning. Very Good, in later cloth.

Originally printed the previous year in Charleston, this unusually perceptive oration is one of three London 1795 printings, priority unclear. The South Carolina historian, physician, and statesman was "a moderate Federalist, representative of the coast country group, a man of ability, integrity, and influence" [DAB]. Eaton, "the London publisher and bookseller, was indicted in 1793 for selling Paine's Rights of Man" [McCoy E16]. A friend of America, he was frequently at odds with the Crown.
Ramsay recalls that he "delivered the first oration that was spoken in the United States, to celebrate this great event." America is unique: the entire American environment "concurred to inspire its inhabitants with the love of liberty: the facility of procuring landed property, gave every citizen an opportunity of becoming an independent freeholder." Here "Each citizen thinks what he pleases, and speaks and writes what he thinks." A particular blessing is Americans' "exemption from ecclesiastical establishments."
John Carter Brown Library 3751. Sabin 67701. I Turnbull 318. OCLC 1340120393 [1- Princeton] as of May 2024. Item #40079

Price: $500.00