Religion & Philosophy Holiday 2022 - 90 - “Had More To Do With Preparing The Minds Of American Colonists For The American Revolution Than… Coke, Sidney And Locke” (Hudson) 87. CARE, Henry. English Liberties: Or, The FreeBorn Subject’s Inheritance. London, 1682. Small octavo (3-1/2 by 6 inches), contemporary full polished brown sheep rebacked with original spine laid down, custom clamshell box. $16,000. Rare first edition, containing printings of the Magna Charta and other seminal documents on the separation of church and state, the right to religious liberty, trial by jury and other founding principles. Care’s influence is clear “in the writings of the founding fathers of the United States— Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Dickinson and Alexander Hamilton… Jefferson added two copies of English Liberties to his library and arranged that it be included in the library of the University of Virginia” (Schwoerer, 231-5). A handsome copy in contemporary sheep. Care’s English Liberties contains “the most important documents and statements in English history and law concerning liberty, property and the rights of the individual… Benjamin Franklin knew its contents thoroughly” (Lemay, Life, 74). This first edition features a printing of the Magna Charta, “a symbol of political liberty and the foundation of constitutional government” (Grams, 95). “Care advocated a radical theory of liberty of the religious conscience for all persons… and argued for the principle of separation of church and state… his ideas are comparable to those of John Locke on that subject and were in print before Locke’s Letter on Toleration.” Care especially promoted “an abiding respect for the merits of trial by jury as a bulwark of English rights and liberties. English Liberties… helped to transmit this ‘jury ideology’ and other ideas about fundamental laws and the rights and liberties of Englishmen to 18th-century England and the American colonies” (Schwoerer, xxvi). Precedes the 1721 first American edition. Bound without initial blank leaf, two-leaf publisher’s advertisement; occasional mispagination as issued without loss of text. ESTC R31286. Bookplate of bibliophile Robert J. Hayhurst. Small shelf label. Plain bookplate with trace of owner signature. Faint dampstaining to text and front board, a bit of marginal wormholing. A near-fine copy of this profoundly influential work. “A handbook of civil liberties.”—British Library
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