A COLLECTION OF VALUABLE DOCUMENTS, BEING BIRNEY'S VINDICATION OF ABOLITIONISTS- PROTEST OF THE AMERICAN A.S. SOCIETY- TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, OR, TO SUCH AMERICANS AS VALUE THEIR RIGHTS- LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE N.Y.A.S. SOCIETY, TO THE EXEC. COM. OF THE OHIO STATE A.S.S. AT CINCINNATI- OUTRAGE UPON SOUTHERN RIGHTS.
Boston: Printed by Isaac Knapp, 1836. 80pp, disbound, scattered foxing, Good+.
This is a collection of scarce anti-slavery petitions, protests, and letters from late 1835 and 1836. This is their first printing in pamphlet or book form; and all are rare.
Included are the reply of Birney, the Kentucky former slaveholder who would become the presidential candidate of the Liberty Party, to an Alabama Memorial attacking the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society; the Society's Protest against Andrew Jackson's speech condemning its distribution of anti-slavery material in the South via the mails; a Letter to the People of the United States, urging them to support freedom of speech and of the press, and "to give your suffrages hereafter only to such men as you have reason to believe will not sacrifice your rights, and their own obligations, and the claims of mercy and the commands of God, to an iniquitous and mercenary COMPACT" with slavery; a letter from Alvan Stewart, chair of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society, to his counterparts in Ohio, urging them to be stout-hearted in the face of threats and violence, and exhorting them "Onward!" "AMERICANS MUST BECOME ABOLITIONISTS OR SLAVES." Finally, a Georgia editorial is printed, expressing shock at the court decision in Massachusetts [the Med Case] that a slave brought into that State becomes instantly free.
FIRST EDITION. Sabin 14400. Dumond 41. LCP 2532. Not in Blockson, Weinstein. Item #42297
Price: $875.00