Acts of the First General Assembly of the State of Missouri; Passed at the First Session, which was Begun and Held at the Town of Saint Louis...1820. [and] Acts of the First General Assembly of the State of Missouri; Passed at the Special Session, Began and Held at the Town of St. Charles...1821.

St. Louis / St. Charles: Isaac N. Henry / St. Charles , 1820-1821.

$3,500.00

In Stock Item Number: RRB-152042

Custom Clamshell Box

Hand made by the Harcourt Bindery. ~90 days

+$450

Add to Cart

Ask a Question

Authenticity Guaranteed

Secure Shipping

Rare First Editions of Missouri's Official 1820 & 1821 Acts; Central to the First and Second Missouri Compromise, with First Official Printing of Missouri's Solemn Public Act

First editions of the first official printing of the Acts of Missouri's 1820 First General Assembly and 1821 Special Session, two rare works marking a turning point in the constitutional and sectional fury over slavery that triggered the First Missouri Compromise and the Second Missouri Compromise (1820-21). Octavo, two volumes, bound in full modern brown calf with gilt titles to the spines on morocco labels, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels. In very good condition with light toning and expert paper repair to minor loss of lower edge of title page and edge of last leaf of the 1821 Acts.

The Missouri controversy of 1819 to 1821 stands among the most consequential constitutional crises in early American history, a sectional confrontation over the expansion of slavery that Thomas Jefferson famously likened to "a fire bell in the night." When the Missouri Territory sought admission to the Union in 1819, Congress deadlocked over whether the new state would enter as slave or free, ultimately resolving the impasse through the First Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri as a slave state while prohibiting slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30' line. The crisis renewed the following year when Missouri's proposed constitution included a clause in Section 26 barring free African Americans from entering the state, prompting the Second Missouri Compromise, drafted by Henry Clay and signed by President Monroe, which imposed as a condition of admission that Missouri's legislature pass a "solemn public act" disavowing any interpretation of the offending clause that would deny constitutional privileges to citizens of other states. The acts of Missouri's First General Assembly of 1820 and Special Session of 1821 together preserve the legislative record of this confrontation, with the 1821 volume containing the first official printing of the Solemn Public Act passed on June 26, 1821, the final legislative step before President Monroe's proclamation of August 10, 1821, declared Missouri's admission to the Union complete. As historian Robert Pierce Forbes has observed, the Missouri controversy offers perhaps the most valuable single key to understanding the meaning of slavery in America, for if the First Compromise promised a limit to slavery's expansion, the Second contained the seeds of civil war.