1855 OHIO ABOLITIONIST. Thoughts in Prose and Verse by Marquis Mundell. Very Rare.

A very rare work by an Ohio Abolitionist; no copies on the market and not offered at auction since 1953!

The work contains both prose and poetry generally in three veins; America [these items generally tinged with something akin to despair; he has a very high view of America in general, but internal divisions and slavery threaten], Slavery and Liberty, and natural and human virtues. 

He begins with a subtle poem entitled America, whose stanzas build toward the rest of the volume's questions about slavery, liberty [including for Native Americans], impending Civil War, etc.,

"Thou art the home of millions freed
From vile oppression's hand;
Our fathers here did fight and bleed
To gain this happy land.

O! may eternal freedom reign,
Over this lovely place;
And may no vile infamous stain
This continent deface."

The "vile infamous stain" has a name, of course. Slavery.

This is shortly followed by his essay entitled "Slavery." "Slavery may be considered a great central evil upon which an enormous train of evils wait, carrying in its course pollution and degradation." Interestingly enough, Mr. Mundell is an advocate of the Colonization plan.

We then have poems and prose works that continually orbit around this internal American contradition of freedom and liberty . . . and oppression: "Freedom," "Why did Our Fathers Fight?," The Human Race," "The Dangers which are Impending Over Our Country," "On the Dissolution of the Union," "Address to the Oppressed Nationsof Europe and Asia," "The Dawning of American Independence," "The Red Man's Lamentation," "The Political Millennium," "To the Stars and Stripes," etc.

Mundell, Marquis B. Miscellaneous Thoughts in Prose and Verse. Cincinnait: Published for the Author. Longley Brothers, Printers. 168 1/2 Vine Street. 1855. First Edition. 94pp.

A fair copy only, rubbed and faded cloth, a bit cocked. Ffep and rfep both lacking making the the title the first leaf. Handled with some occasional pencil marks. Lacking three leaves, i.e. pp.25-30, not impacting any of the items mentioned above. Scarce in any condition.