"WICKED LEGISLATION…. BY WHICH WHITE MEN WERE TO BE PRONOUNCED CIVILLY DEAD": VERY SCARCE FIRST SEPARATE EDITION OF NEW JERSEY SENATOR C.H. WINFIELD'S INFLUENTIAL 1838 SPEECH OPPOSING RATIFICATION OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT

(CONSTITUTION) WINFIELD, C[harles]. H[ardenburg]. Constitutional Amendment. Speech of Hon. C.H. Winfield, in the New Jersey Senate, Delivered February 19, 1868, the Resolution to Withdraw the Assent of New Jersey to the Proposed Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Jersey City: John H. Lyon, 1868. Octavo, original printed tan wrappers; pp. (1-3), 4-31 (1). $1600.

First separate edition of New Jersey Senator Winfield's 1868 Speech proclaiming fierce opposition to the 14th Amendment at the height of the long struggle for ratification, with the state's final refusal to ratify remaining even as the Amendment finally became part of the U.S. Constitution.

New Jersey, which did not legally end state slavery until January 1866, initially responded to the call for ratification of the 14th Amendment with authorization in the state's House of Assembly Joint Resolution No. 1 on September 1866. In February 1868, however, the New Jersey Senate issued Joint Resolution No.1, withdrawing consent to the Amendment—followed by the Governor Ward's February 1868 Message that vetoed the Senate Resolution. Governor Ward's veto was soon countered, however, by the New Jersey Senate's March 5 override in a Senate Resolution that was shared by the House of Assembly override on March 24. Subsequently, as the U.S. Senate edged toward ratification, the standing recissions by New Jersey and Ohio were only "solved when Georgia ratified the amendment… [and] on July 20, 1868, Seward issued a proclamation declaring the 14th Amendment ratified… Congress reacted quickly to Seward's proclamation, and on July 21, 1868, declared… the 14th Amendment was part of the U.S. Constitution" (Bryant, Orthodox, 575).

Henry Winfield, a staunch New Jersey opponent to Reconstruction, was representing Hudson County in the state Senate when he delivered this Speech on February 19, 1868. His argument, aligned with the state's slave history, pivoted on the national battle to ratify the 14th Amendment. In the U.S. Congress, an early poll had shown "that the Senate was still one vote shy of the required two-third. One outspoken opponent of the Amendment was John Stockton of New Jersey," who was expelled, leaving the motion to be "passed by only a bare majority" (Bryant, 575-62). In Winfield's Speech, he vigorously challenges Stockton's expulsion, and accuses 14th Amendment supporters with the use of "a secret machinery" and "unscrupulous" vote-counting. The purpose of this "wicked legislation," he states, "is for the purpose of enforcing negro suffrage on the southern states, which we refuse to accept but insist upon its reception by them." Winfield, who authored several New Jersey histories, contends passage of the "ratified said amendment" depends on holding many southern states "without legal governments… by which white men were to be pronounced civilly dead." These voters would be replaced by newly enfranchised "hordes who had just been released from slavery,… [a] mass of ignorance and pauperism," causing the Constitution to be "disregarded or trampled on to gratify the passions of the hour and advance the political supremacy of a party." New Jersey did not officially revoke its 1868 "withdrawal of ratification of the 14th Amendment" until 2003 (NJ Department of State). First separate printing, issued the same year as Winfield delivered his Speech. With: Opinion of Reverdy Johnson, Opinion of Charles O'Conor, which calls the amendment "most pernicious," and Opinion of Geo. T. Curtis. Work, 536.

Interior fresh with small open tear at gutter-edge of title page not affecting text, miminal edge-wear to wrappers. A near-fine copy, very elusive in original unrestored wrappers.