Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - April - 2007 Issue
More Uncommon American Imprints from David Lesser Antiquarian Books
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Item 105 is a 1797 printing of a letter he wrote chastising one of the greatest statesmen of all, George Washington. Rushton wrote Washington a private letter, which was returned to him with no reply. Rushton in turn published this open letter, Expostulatory Letter to George Washington...on his Continuing to be a Proprietor of Slaves. Pointing to Washington's ownership of slaves, Rushton writes, "...a man who, notwithstanding his hatred of oppression and his ardent love of liberty, holds at this moment hundreds of his fellow beings in a state of abject bondage." One can only imagine the pain this contradiction must have inflicted on Washington, who once again failed to respond to Rushton, but who did free his slaves after his (and his wife's) death. Item 105. $2,500.
One of the unresolved issues of slavery during the 1850s concerned the transit of slaves. The passage of the Fugitive Slave Acts established a right of slaveholders to recapture runaway slaves from hiding in free states. However, this did not directly address the issue of slaves willingly taken into free states by their owners. Since there were no federal laws specifically dealing with this issue, did they become free by virtue of the laws of the state into which they were taken? Item 92 is a Report of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania, in Relation to the Rights of Transit of Slave Property Through This State, published in 1856. The majority states that rules of comity compel that the property rights in slaves be recognized, but the minority report argues that slavery is only a local institution "not recognized by the law of nature" nor the law of nations. $450. Item 67 is the Report of the Lemmon Slave Case from the New York Court of Appeals, published in 1861, but dealing with a case that began in 1852. The Lemmon family of Virginia had traveled to New York with eight slaves to catch a ship to New Orleans, but a free New York black man filed a writ of habeas corpus to liberate them. The New York court decided for freedom, a decision that undoubtedly would have wound its way to a hostile U.S. Supreme Court had Virginia not seceded from the Union. $1,250.
Union forces were quite magnanimous toward their Confederate foes when the Civil War concluded, but there were a few exceptions. E.S. Rouse, a Justice of the Peace from Mount Vernon, Ohio, penned a poem in 1865 to celebrate the Union triumph, The Soldiers' Welcome! A Poem Read at the Celebration in Mount Vernon, July 4th, 1865. Writing of Jefferson Davis' attempt to escape Union forces dressed as a woman, Rouse rhymes, "Of all the strange and funny sights / Of the rebel great downfall, / Jeff. Davis with petticoats o'er his boots / Was the funniest sight of all." Rouse is a little less humorous when he states, "And Lee, and Longstreet, Cobb and Clay, / And Bragg and Maury too, / Ewell and Forrest, all must swing, / Ere Justice gets her due." Item 104. $850.
The website for David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books is www.lesserbooks.com. The phone number is 203-389-8111.
