Report of the Arguments of the Attorney of the Commonwealth, at the Trials of Abner Kneeland, for Blasphemy, in the Municipal Supreme Courts, in Boston, January and May, 1834

[Kneeland, Abner] Massachusetts, Attorney General's Office

Published by Beals, Homer & Co, Boston, 1834

About this Item

Octavo. 93, [1] pp. First edition. Removed from volume. First and final two leaves are chipped at the margins; title leaf soiled; foxing throughout. Kneeland was a Universalist minister whose thinking continued to press the boundaries of socially acceptable beliefs, challenging popular convention of the time. Though occasionally billed as an atheist, Kneeland was a self-professed pantheist, who did not spare the reading public his opinions about religion and god, publishing them in his Boston Investigator. And in 1833, he was charged and after a series of trials ultimately found guilty of blasphemy. Ralph E. McCoy in his Freedom of the Press, notes that this report was issued by those opposed to Kneeland. "The gist of the argument was that the press is free to express opinions provided they do not offend the beliefs of others; that the crime of blasphemy is aggravated when it is conveyed in a newspaper 'easily circulated, soon read, and finding its way to the poor and unlearned, to those who have not learning nor leisure enough to consider and refute its falsehoods.' The courts should act as 'moral Boards of Health' to Denounce and restrain blasphemy and obscenity." McCoy, K149. These laws and the trials resulting in convictions can be found scattered throughout the 19th century. Even though courts have affirmed that First Amendment rights protect against blasphemy in the 20th century, Kneeland's case and the arguments on which it hung feel as relevant today as ever. After the dust settled in this years-long affair, Kneeland went west to get out of the spotlight. He died in Iowa in 1842. He was an important thinker and voice in the first half of the 19th century. Oliver Wendell Holmes noted that his "gentle courage, his temperate statement of opinions . . . threatened to shake the existing order of thought like an earthquake" (qtd in. Oxford American National Biography). American Imprints 25596.

Seller Inventory # 9875

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Report of the Arguments of the Attorney of the Commonwealth, at the Trials of Abner Kneeland, for Blasphemy, in the Municipal Supreme Courts, in Boston, January and May, 1834
• Publisher: Beals, Homer & Co, Boston
• Publication Date: 1834
• Binding: Disbound
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Good binding
• Seller catalogs:
  • Americana
  • Pamphlets