Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - June - 2004 Issue
Significant and Unusual Americana <br>From David Lesser Antiquarian Books
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One more piece from this era before we move on, and it’s a comparably strong-worded document from the other side. On December 18, 1859, Rev. J.P. Gulliver preached before his Norwich, Connecticut, congregation The Lioness and her Whelps: A Sermon on Slavery… In it he profusely commends John Brown and describes his hanging as “the most significant…tragedy in our national history since the close of the war of Independence.” Gulliver says Brown’s only crime was trying to implement the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence (and remember what his southern counterpart said about that document) by encouraging some slaves to escape to freedom and providing them with firearms with which to protect themselves along the way. Item 63. $175.
While most items of debate have changed since those days, here’s an issue that’s as much in the forefront, and as much in dispute today as it was in 1848 when this piece was written. It’s The Divine Organic Law, Ordained for the Human Race; or, Capital Punishment for Murder Authorized by God and Sustained by Reason by George Duffield. Over a century and a half have passed since this was written, and we are still trying to discern what reason tells us, and what God’s opinion is, on the issue of capital punishment. Item 45. $250.
Item 97 is something of a sad piece. James Monroe was an extremely popular president. He was a nearly unanimous choice in the electoral college in the election of 1820. He presided over what is known as “the era of good feelings” because rarely has the country been as united as it was during his administration. So it is sad to see him struggling to get by financially less than four years after leaving the presidency. The Memoir of James Monroe, Esq. Relating to his Unsettled Claims upon the People and Government of the United States is his attempt to recover expenditures he personally made while serving his country long before he became president. $750.
Item 87 is an Address of the Louisiana Native American Association… If you think this 1839 publication comes from the people more commonly known as “Indians,” guess again. This is an attack on recent immigrants, Irish and German in particular, by the children of immigrants who threw the true Native Americans off of their land. Their aim was to prevent the “swarms of foreign locusts,” as they so tactfully put it, from entering the country. $375.
So what happened to the real Native Americans? Well here’s a run of 52 issues of the weekly The Indian Helper published in 1890-91 by the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, a Pennsylvania school created to teach Indian children the White Man’s way. At a last meeting, the Superintendent counsels “I advise you to flee away from reservations. Hold your heads up and be each his own master. Go into the business life of the country, where personal rights and the light of civilization will constantly invite and help you.” He obviously meant well, but did lack an understanding of traditional Indian society and culture. Item 24. $500.
