A very finely preserved example of the work by chief Confederate propagandist and architect of the Lost Cause mythology, Albert Taylor Bledsoe [1809-1877].
. . . the most extensive philosophical treatment of slavery ever produced by a Southern academic. . . Bledsoe, Defender of the Old South [2011]
A fellow cadet with Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee at West Point, he was a natural part of the inner circle during the era of the Confederacy and the Rebellion. Having also studied law, rather than being involved in the political struggle or the military [though he was an officer of the CSA], his chief use was as propagandist. He used his academic background and his legal skill to write what was essentially a political, social, philosophical, economic, practical, and theological brief on the benefits and relative goodness of southern slavery. Many of his observations stuck and became the talking points of the South in the run up to and aftermath of the War, including the States Rights argument.
No copies on the market at the time of cataloguing. Scarce at auction.
Bledsoe, Albert Taylor. An Essay on Liberty and Slavery. By Albert Taylor Bledsoe, LL.D. Professor of Mathematics in the University of Virginia. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1856. 383pp.
A very good copy, bound in cloth, generally solid, with light to moderate foxing. There is a small adhesive remainder at lower spine, minor ex-library stamp on title, and remains of pocket and small excision at the rears. Else quite crisp and clean Minor foxing as shown.
