Scarce first British edition of Kentucky's first formal protest against becoming America's next "slave state." The sermon was delivered by Rev. David Rice during the first Kentucky constitutional convention, while legislators for the new state were framing their new state guiding documents. Much like Benjamin Franklin's plea to the Congress just a few years earlier, the counsel to do right fell almost universally on deaf ears.
Preceded by the Lexington and Philadelphia editions of the same year. All editions rare. Last at auction, 1989.
Holding men in slavery is the national vice of Virginia; and, while a part of that state, we were partakers of the guilt. As a separate state, we are just now come to the birth, and it depends upon our free choice, whether we shall be born in this sin, or innocent of it.
Rice, David. Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Good Policy. Proved by a Speech Delivered in the Convention, Held at Danville, Kentucky. Philadelphia. Sold by M. Gurney. 1793. 24pp.
A good + copy, bound in wraps, lightly shaken, with generally bright pages and light foxing. Flotsam on spine from remains of a sammelband binding.
