?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
VAN DAME, J. B. "A Reference Manual on Political, Anti-Slavery, Temperance, Education, Tobacco, and Other Subjects both Original and Selected, by J. B. Van Dame." 142 pages, small, thick 12mo, written in a tiny, cursive script; printed matter, including the Constitution, interspersed; bound in full contemporary brown roan, spine with five simple rules in blind. [Boston?, 1863-1865]
This little journal in the words of its author "was begun by me Jan.1, '63 and all except a few pages were written from another book of mine of 370 pages; before school in the morning and after school in the night. And finished by November 1, '63. Some of it has been added since, as circumstances demanded." Mr. Van Dame proceeds to give a brief history of the Temperance movement, and then provides an extensive index. While Van Dame devotes a great deal of time to the subject of temperance and the evils of tobacco, he devotes equal or more time to the subject of slavery--and he does it by going back to the framers and how they dealt with the subject. Interleaved with the manuscript are bits and pieces of printed matter. Van Dame even gives us the name of the binder in Boston, Mr. Ullman. This journal is altogether a gem, and provides a rare insight into the thinking of a New Englander at the time of the Civil War.
