Sep 26, 2019 - Sale 2517

Sale 2517 - Lot 125

Price Realized: $ 13,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 12,000 - $ 18,000
(JUDAICA.) Sketch of Proceedings in the Legislature of Maryland, December Session, 1818, on what is commonly called the Jew Bill. 86 pages. 8vo, stitched; browned and brittle (as are all other known surviving examples), title page and second leaf chipped without loss of text, final blank detached and defective; uncut. In modern tray case. Baltimore, 1819

Additional Details

For fifty years after independence, the state of Maryland prohibited Jews from holding public office. This law was repeatedly challenged by members of the state's small Jewish community and its more reasonable legislators. The act to rectify this injustice, popularly known as "The Jew Bill," met with failure in 1804 and 1818, and would not be passed until 1826. This volume includes the legislative debates on the subject in December 1818, including long speeches in its favor by Thomas Kennedy and Henry M. Brackenridge. An appendix offers newspaper editorials in favor of the bill, including extracts from letters by all three living ex-presidents: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. No other copies known at auction since 1982. Rosenbach 203; Sabin 45362; Singerman 0301.