Black Americana and Abolition – 14 – Bauman Rare Books - July 2022 The Burns Case Helped Foster “Lincoln’s Presidency, The South’s Secession And The Civil War” (New York Times) 20. (BURNS, Anthony) Boston Slave Riot, and Trial of Anthony Burns. Boston, 1854. Slim octavo, original pictorial cream selfwrappers, custom clamshell box. $5200. First edition of a seminal pre-Civil War pamphlet on the 1854 arrest and Boston trial of fugitive slave Anthony Burns, whose return to his Virginia slave owner at the order of the Boston court sparked public fury, with front wrapper featuring an engraved portrait of Burns. The trial of fugitive slave Anthony Burns, “one of the most dramatic and famous incidents in the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act,” was sparked by the arrest in Boston of Anthony Burns, whose Virginia slave-owner Suttle followed him to Boston in 1854 and had Burns arrested. “The trial and removal of Burns from Boston created one of the great spectacles of the late antebellum period” (Finkelman, 107112). The Burns case moved Walt Whitman “to write an ironic piece, A Boston Ballad, soon to be incorporated into his revolutionary volume Leaves of Grass,” and at a July 4 antislavery rally, Thoreau delivered his speech, Slavery in Massachusetts. Text fresh, light edge-wear to wrappers, expert restoration to paper spine. A Rare Presentation Copy Inscribed By Theodore Parker 21. PARKER, Theodore. The Trial of Theodore Parker, for the ‘Misdemeanor’ of a Speech in Faneuil Hall against Kidnapping, before the Circuit Court of the United States, at Boston, April 3, 1855. With the Defence. Boston, 1855. Octavo, original green cloth. $3000. First edition of the fiery abolitionist’s attack on the trial and rendition of Anthony Burns, and the federal government’s attempt to prosecute Parker and other key abolitionists—a presentation copy inscribed to a dedicated Massachusetts abolitionist: “Mary Drew from her friend Theo. Parker.” Theodore Parker was arrested following the Faneuil Hall meeting protesting the arrest of fugitive slave Anthony Burns. After the government indicted but decided to drop the prosecution of Parker, he decided to publish this “lengthy and scathing” work. Here, in “‘one of the most remarkable and flamboyant American books of the 19th century,’ Parker presented a ‘thorough treatise on the right of free speech, the wrong of slavery, and the nature of judicial tyranny’” (Lubet, 220-21). The recipient Mary Drew was a prominent Worcester, Massachusetts abolitionist who also was a key figure in attendance at the 1850 Women’s Rights Convention. Contemporary gift inscription. Text very fresh with only lightest foxing to preliminaries, mere trace of edge-wear to original cloth. A desirable inscribed copy, about-fine.
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