Dec 01, 2011 - Sale 2263

Sale 2263 - Lot 124

Price Realized: $ 1,560
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(CONSTITUTION.) Address or Oration Delivered by a Member of a Society in Huntingdon . . . on the Subject of the Proposed Constitution. 21 manuscript pages. 4to, self-wrappers, in later stiff paper covers; moderate dampstaining, wrapper faded, last leaf detached and defective with partial loss to five lines of text, otherwise legible with just minor wear. Huntingdon [PA?], 7 June 1788
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A stirring oration in favor of immediate ratification of the Constitution. The author saw the Constitution as a set of compromises between diverse regions and interests, quite imperfect but still likely to be the foundation of a great nation. He was worried that further debate and delay would only endanger the grand democratic project. The Bill of Rights was seen as a particularly bothersome obstacle: 'It is given up by all men of learning to be unnecessary, the question now only being whither or no it would be dangerous' (page 5). He praised the system's innate checks and balances, thought its flaws would be self-correcting, and dismissed the notion that the president would assume despotic powers. He observed that unlike England, 'our president can not be a child, and I trust he will not be a fool, unless the people of the United States are all fools together' (page 6).
Who was the author of this fascinating and apparently unpublished essay? The 19th-century cover credits it to a James Thompson, with James crossed out to read Charles. Charles Thomson was the secretary of the Continental Congress at the time, perhaps a likely candidate to deliver such an address if he found the time to travel to western Pennsylvania. However, the handwriting does not match Thomson's. The author seems to be a Quaker, or at least expresses religious scruples about the military on page 18. This would also rule out Thomson, as well as Huntingdon, PA's leading Federalists Benjamin Elliott and John Cannon. Whoever did give this oration was closely familiar with the latest debates over the Constitution. A serious constitutional scholar would be needed to properly place this manuscript on the spectrum between interesting and revelatory. with--a partial draft of a militia constitution, with the unit's name left blank. 4 manuscript pages, worn at folds. Np, nd.