"EACH HUMAN BEING RETAINS INHERENTLY THE RIGHTY TO HIS OWN PERSON, HIS NATURAL LIBERTY": VERY SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF WILLIAM O. BLAKE'S MASSIVE, AUTHORITATIVE HISTORY OF SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE, 1857

BLAKE, W(illiam) O. The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, Ancient and Modern, The Forms of Slavery that Prevailed in Ancient Nations, Particularly in Greece and Rome, The African Slave Trade and the Political History of Slavery in the United States. Columbus: J & H. Miller, 1857. Thick octavo, original dark brown blind-stamped leather sympathetically rebacked and recornered, marbled endpapers and edges; pp. 832.

First edition of Blake's pre-Civil War classic documenting slavery's global and American history, a monumental work on slavery's legal, political and moral consequences, with frontispiece and seven full-page tinted wood- and steel-engravings.

Blake's masterful volume extensively documents slavery in North America with a distinctive focus on its political history from its colonial beginnings to a turning point just prior to the Civil War. This authoritative work also chronicles slavery in Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as the "abominations" of the middle passage and British engagement against the "horrors of the trade." In his preface, Blake speaks to the link between the law and slavery, both parliamentary and constitutional, and in the over 800 pages of this History provides a record of pro- and anti-slavery legal judgments and actions, while also noting "each human being retains inherently the right to his own person, his natural liberty." Slavery, he states, is "inconsistent with the moral nature of man." In his detailed coverage of American slavery, Blake covers presidential campaigns, territorial expansion, the Missouri Compromise, state constitutions, court decisions, numerous trial and legal texts, the terrible human cost and much more. Considered an definitive classic, Blake's History also features 16 pages of statistical tables based on the 1850 census and an Appendix summarizing the Dred Scott case. First edition, first printing: with eight wood- and steel-engraved plates including frontispiece. Blockson 9518 (1860 edition). Sabin 5800 (1857, 1861 editions). Very faint trace of early owner signature to preliminary blank.

Interior very fresh with lightest scattered foxing, one leaf with small corner chip not affecting text (79). A very scarce near-fine copy.