Acts First General Assembly State, Signed (2 results)

Wraps. Condition: Good. Octavo, printed front wrapper, all edges uncut as usual. This copy has two light blue partial overwrappers; the front bears the presentation inscription "B.F. Vancleve, Esq/ With the respects of/ Geo. Clinton Westcott" (see below). 539 pp. Usual creasing abd rounding to the corners and edges; interior clean and bright with only a bit of occasional foxing. George Clinton Westcott (circa 1815-1853) was the son of New Jersey Secretary of State James Diament Westcott, Sr. (1775-1841, Sec'y of State 1830-1840). George's grandfather , John Westcott, who according to family history was in the same boat on Christmas night, 1776 as George Washington when he crossed the Delaware and held the flag. George Clinton Westcott was an Army officer who died at sea of yellow fever abord the Tennessee during the Mexican War,

First editions of the first official printing of the Acts of Missouri's 1820 First General Assembly and 1821 Special Session, two rare works marking a turning point in the constitutional and sectional fury over slavery that triggered the First Missouri Compromise and the Second Missouri Compromise (1820-21). Octavo, two volumes, bound in full modern brown calf with gilt titles to the spines on morocco labels, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels. In very good condition with light toning and expert paper repair to minor loss of lower edge of title page and edge of last leaf of the 1821 Acts. The Missouri controversy of 1819 to 1821 stands among the most consequential constitutional crises in early American history, a sectional confrontation over the expansion of slavery that Thomas Jefferson famously likened to "a fire bell in the night." When the Missouri Territory sought admission to the Union in 1819, Congress deadlocked over whether the new state would enter as slave or free, ultimately resolving the impasse through the First Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri as a slave state while prohibiting slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30' line. The crisis renewed the following year when Missouri's proposed constitution included a clause in Section 26 barring free African Americans from entering the state, prompting the Second Missouri Compromise, drafted by Henry Clay and signed by President Monroe, which imposed as a condition of admission that Missouri's legislature pass a "solemn public act" disavowing any interpretation of the offending clause that would deny constitutional privileges to citizens of other states. The acts of Missouri's First General Assembly of 1820 and Special Session of 1821 together preserve the legislative record of this confrontation, with the 1821 volume containing the first official printing of the Solemn Public Act passed on June 26, 1821, the final legislative step before President Monroe's proclamation of August 10, 1821, declared Missouri's admission to the Union complete. As historian Robert Pierce Forbes has observed, the Missouri controversy offers perhaps the most valuable single key to understanding the meaning of slavery in America, for if the First Compromise promised a limit to slavery's expansion, the Second contained the seeds of civil war.