COOKE, William. [Alexander Hamilton].
The Bankrupt Laws.
London: Printed for E. and R. Brooke, Bell-Yard, near Temple-Bar , 1793.
$88,000.00
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Item Number: RRB-151910
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William Cooke's The Bankrupt Laws; From the Library of Alexander Hamilton; Signed Twice by Alexander Hamilton and Additionally by his Eldest Son Philip Hamilton
Third edition of this important late-eighteenth-century legal treatise from the library of Alexander Hamilton, signed twice by him and additionally by his eldest son Philip Hamilton. Octavo, bound in full calf with stamping to the spine and panels in blind. Signed by Alexander Hamilton on the title page, “A. Hamilton” and again on the final leaf, "Alexander Hamilton." Additionally signed twice by Hamilton's eldest son Philip Hamilton on the verso of the front board. In November 1801, Philip Hamilton (1782–1801), a recent Columbia College graduate then beginning the study of law, was killed in a duel with the New York attorney George Eacker. The quarrel arose from remarks Eacker had made disparaging Alexander Hamilton, which Philip, then nineteen, took it upon himself to answer. He died of his wound the following day. Less than three years later, on 11 July 1804, his father met Vice President Aaron Burr on the duelling ground at Weehawken and was himself mortally wounded, dying the next afternoon. In good condition. Housed in a custom clamshell box. Books bearing Alexander Hamilton’s signature are known; examples bearing Philip Hamilton’s signature are markedly uncommon, owing to his early death. Volumes containing the signatures of both father and son together are of the utmost scarcity.
Cooke's Bankrupt Laws was a standard late-eighteenth-century treatise on the English statutes governing insolvency, the administration of bankrupt estates, and the procedures attending commissions of bankruptcy. Works of this kind belonged to the practical literature consulted by attorneys whose practice touched questions of commerce, credit, and debt. That Hamilton kept such a volume in his library accords with his work at the bar and, more pointedly, with his tenure as the first Secretary of the Treasury, in which the credit of the United States, the management of the public debt, and the architecture of American finance were the central concerns of his office.
The Bankrupt Laws.
$88,000.00
In Stock
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