SPEECH OF JAMES M'DOWELL, JR. (OF ROCKBRIDGE,) IN THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES OF VIRGINIA, ON THE SLAVE QUESTION: DELIVERED SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1832. SECOND EDITION. THIS SECOND EDITION IS PUBLISHED BY GENTLEMEN WHO ARE FAVORABLE TO THE VIEWS ADVOCATED BY MR. M'D

[Nat Turner Insurrection] McDowell, James Jr.

Published by Thomas White, Richmond, 1832

33, [1 blank] pp. Untrimmed and lightly dusted. Disbound and lacking the final blank. Else Very Good. Contemporary pencil signature, "John Hall," the western Virginia sheriff, politician, and Unionist. The previous year Nat Turner had led the insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia, a profoundly disturbing realization of the South's worst nightmare. The last Southern effort to abolish slavery occurred when Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's grandson, introduced a substitute resolution, because "of the tragical massacre in Southampton," to free all children born of slave parents after July 4, 1840. Here McDowell, the future Virginia Governor and the brother-in-law of Thomas Hart Benton, gives "one of his greatest speeches. He maintained that slavery was a cause of national dissension, that separation could not be peaceful, and that the separate existence of the slave states would be disastrous to their own welfare" [DAB]. In the following year, breaking with many of his southern brethren, as a staunch Jacksonian Democrat he opposed Nullification. McDowell says Virginia is "wasting away under the improvidence and the inactivity which eternally accompany the fatal institution that she cherishes and cherishes, too, as a mother who will hazard her own life rather than part even with the monstrous offspring that afflicts her." M'Dowell delivers an eloquent speech in a losing battle, with the deck stacked in favor of the Tidewater slaveocracy by a malapportioned legislature. This so-called "Second Edition" is the only printing we have located as of March 2026. Haynes 1835. Sabin 43195n. LCP 6212. Not in Dumond, Work. Seller Inventory # 41818

Bibliographic Details

Title: SPEECH OF JAMES M'DOWELL, JR. (OF ROCKBRIDGE...
Publisher: Thomas White, Richmond
Publication Date: 1832