"IN DEFENCE OF THE FREEDOM THAT IS OUR BIRTH-RIGHT… WE HAVE TAKEN UP ARMS": EXCEEDINGLY RARE VOLUME ONE OF THE JOURNALS OF CONGRESS, A MOMENTOUS OFFICIAL RECORD OF THE FIRST AND SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESSES FROM SEPTEMBER 1774 THROUGH THE END OF 1775, AN EXCEPTIONAL COPY IN ORIGINAL BOARDS

(CONTINENTAL CONGRESS). Journals of Congress, Containing the Proceedings From Sept. 5, 1774 to Jan. 1, 1776. Published by Order of Congress. Volume I. Philadelphia: Printed and Sold by R. Aitken, 1777. Octavo, original gray paper boards respined, raised bands, uncut and largely unopened; pp. (2), 310, (12).

First edition of Volume I of the Journals of Congress, the official record of the daily proceedings of the Continental Congress from 1774 through 1775, published by order of Congress in Philadelphia by Aitken, an exceptional contemporary account of the First Continental Congress (September-October 1774) and the Second Continental Congress (May-December 1775), containing the first publication of many key revolutionary texts. The Journals of Congress are "only central record of the colonies and the subsequent states” (Tannenbaum), with its earliest volumes especially hard to come by “because not enough copies were printed” (Powell). Very rare in original boards, uncut and largely unopened.

This exceedingly rare first edition of Volume I of the 13 separately issued Journals of Congress contains the official records of the First and Second Continental Congress from September to October 1774, and the first seven months of the Second Continental Congress, from May to December 1775—providing unmatched contemporary insight into the decisive moments of America's early years. As such, "the Journals of the Congress formed the only central record of the colonies and the subsequent states" (Tanenbaum, 12). This important volume, printed in Philadelphia by Aitken at the order of Congress, records the uncertainty of a time when "it was apparent to no one… that the Congress of deputies gathering in the Carpenters' Hall would be the seed from which a government… would emerge" (Powell, 36). In particular, Volume I details the two major questions that most occupied the First Continental Congress: "what was the basis of American rights and how should they be defended?" (Middlekauff, 243). Elemental to that quest is the printing of Joseph Warren's Suffolk Resolves, which were adopted in Massachusetts on September 9 and immediately carried by Paul Revere to Philadelphia, denouncing "the Attempts of a wicked Administration to enslave America" (15). Also included are: John Jay's eloquent Address to the People of Great Britain (38-45); John Dickinson's Address to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec (58-65), and the Petition of Congress—co-authored by Richard Henry Lee, Dickinson, John Adams and Patrick Henry—which was passed on the final day of the First Continental Congress and sent to Franklin in Britain only to be summarily dismissed by George III (67-72).

Though "it is hard to pinpoint precisely when America crossed the threshold of deciding that complete independence to Britain was necessary and desirable," Volume I charts that course as few works can (Isaacson, 294). Shortly after convening in May 1775, the Second Continental Congress recorded Franklin's earlier letters from Britain (79-81) and heard depositions recounting the Battles of Lexington and Concord (83-97). Additional major texts found in Volume I include: the appointment of Washington as Commander in Chief of American forces, along with his acceptance (120-22); Rules and Regulations for the Continental Army (128-140), "the first orderly description of powers inhering in a central government… [in which] Congress placed itself at the head of a war machine" (Powell, 34, 50); the groundbreaking Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms (142-48), and Dickinson's conciliatory Olive Branch Petition (148-52), as well as Lee's Address to the Inhabitants of Great-Britain (152-59). During the brief span of time recorded herein, Congress became "the superintending power over the unified colonial cause… the idea of independence had laid its grip upon the public mind" (Andrews, 248). The earliest "proceedings of the First Continental Congress were printed in separate parts and issued as the acts and resolutions occurred" (Adams 74-83a). Select documents were separately printed in small numbers or as broadsides, with some collected by the new government's official printers, the Bradfords of Philadelphia, issued in small Extracts or assembled in their publication of Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress (1774), "a book of greatest rarity" (Powell, 45), followed by their 1775 Journal of the Proceedings (May 10-August 1775) and their September to December 1775 Journal (published 1776). Herein is the second official collected printing of those documents first assembled in the Bradford Journals, and the first publication overall of numerous key texts. Aitken's Volume I "is the first volume of the official edition," issued annually (Ford 79), one of the early volumes especially hard to come by "because not enough copies were printed" (Powell, 40, 72). With page 253 mispaginated 353 as issued. Evans 15683. ESTC W20603. Ford 79. Sabin 15545. Bookplate of Historical Society of Pennsylvania with deaccession inkstamp, tipped-to the first of four preliminary and four terminal leaves from a book issued circa 1775: these eight non-integral leaves sewn in by the original binder as signatures, reflecting the scarcity of paper during the Revolution. Early bookplate of a Moravian Congregation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Text fresh and clean with only lightest scattered foxing, minor expert archival paper repair to one leaf minimally affecting text (209). A highly desirable, extremely good copy of a rare Revolutionary volume in original boards.