A Treatise on Rents, Real and Personal Covenants and Conditions

Albany: W.C. Little & Co., 1857. A Significant Association Copy Linking Four Significant Architects of New York Jurisprudence Bingham, Anson [fl. 1850s-1880s]. Colvin, Andrew J. [1808-1889]. A Treatise on Rents, Real and Personal Covenants and Conditions. Albany: W.C. Little & Co., 1857. xxv, 293 pp. Octavo (9" x 6"; 22.9 x 15.2 cm). Contemporary sheep, blind fillets to boards, red and black lettering pieces to spine. A few minor nicks to boards, moderate rubbing to extremities with some wear to spine ends and corners, joints starting at foot, "Mssrs. Seymour & Van Santvoord/ with regards of the / Authors" in pencil to front free endpaper. Light toning and foxing to interior. A very good copy with a notable provenance. $1,250. An exceptional association copy of the only edition, uniquely linking four distinguished figures of the Mid-Hudson legal establishment. This volume represents a nexus of scholarship and political power in 19th-century New York. George van Sandvoord & David L. Seymour: Van Sandvoord was a preeminent scholar-jurist and author of the definitive treatise on the Field Code. His partner, Seymour, was a formidable political figure, serving as Rensselaer County D.A. and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Anson Bingham & Andrew J. Colvin: Bingham was a titan of real property law and a primary advocate for the 1860 Married Women's Property Act. His partner, Colvin, served as Albany's Corporation Counsel and State Senator; he is perhaps best remembered as the visionary behind the New York Forest Preserve. A Treatise on Rents is more than a legal text; it is a direct artifact of the Anti-Rent War (1839-1846). This tenant uprising against the "patroonship" system of the Van Rensselaers forced a total reckoning of New York's land-tenure laws. The work captures the legal environment that birthed the 1846 State Constitution, which finally abolished long-term feudal leases and dismantled the last vestiges of Dutch manorial privilege in the Hudson Valley. [Street], Memorial of George Van Santvoord 6-13. Murphy, Biographical Sketches of the State Officers and Members of the Legislature of the State of New York 42-45, 158-160. "Seymour, David L." A Biographical Congressional Directory, 1774 to 1903 (accessed online). Cohen, Bibliography of Early American Law (2003 Supplement) 9552.50.