1856 DRED SCOTT. Sammelband of 31 Works on Slavery, John Brown & Harper's Ferry, Dred Scott, and the Crisis in Kansas.

An exceptional, highly cohesive archive of print material related to the sectional crisis in the United States. The volume is extraordinarily rich in its coverage of the legal, political, and constitutional battles over slavery, centered on the landmark 1856–1857 Dred Scott decision, the Bleeding Kansas crisis, and the rise of the Republican Party.

The highlight of the volume is the official first edition of Benjamin C. Howard’s official report of the Dred Scott decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford), published by Cornelius Wendell in Washington in 1857. Running 239 pages, this publication is the authoritative legal printing of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's majority opinion, along with the concurring and famous dissenting opinions of Justices Benjamin Robbins Curtis and John McLean. Taney’s ruling, holding that Black people, whether free or enslaved, were not citizens of the United States and had "no rights which the white man was bound to respect," while also declaring the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, sent shockwaves through the nation. Historically and bibliographically, Howard's official court report is the single most important legal document of the antebellum era, as it effectively invalidated political compromise on slavery and accelerated the march toward civil war.

Complementing the legal cornerstone is the exceptionally rare 1860 campaign pamphlet published by the National Democratic Committee titled The Rendition of Fugitive Slaves - The Dred Scott Case - What the Court Decided. Issued during the fateful presidential campaign of 1860, this 16-page tract illustrates how Northern and Southern Democrats attempted to leverage the Supreme Court's ruling to enforce the Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. In the context of the sammelband, this pamphlet serves as an essential ideological counterweight to the surrounding anti-slavery speeches, demonstrating how pro-slavery and Northern Democratic strategists framed Taney’s decision as settled constitutional law to defend property rights in enslaved human beings. Not a single example of this imprint has been offered at auction in more than 100 years. 

Beyond the Dred Scott material, the collection contains an extraordinary array of primary anti-slavery and Republican campaign literature from 1856 to 1860. A notable highlight is Charles Sumner's famous 32-page speech The Crime Against Kansas, delivered in May 1856. This passionate denunciation of pro-slavery forces in Kansas directly prompted Congressman Preston Brooks to brutally beat Sumner with a cane on the Senate floor just days later. The political fallout of that assault is echoed elsewhere in the volume, particularly in Edwin B. Morgan’s tract addressing the Know-Nothing convention’s reaction to the Brooks attack and Anson Burlingame's Defence of Massachusetts, a famous congressional speech defending Sumner's honor.

The volume also highlights the political rhetoric of William H. Seward, the leading Republican candidate for president entering 1860. His contributions include his landmark October 1858 Rochester speech introducing his famous phrase, the "irrepressible conflict" between freedom and slavery, as well as his February 1860 address in the Senate (The Republican Party the Conservators of the Union) attempting to moderate Republican stances in the wake of John Brown's raid. John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry is further addressed in Lyman Trumbull’s 1859 Remarks... on Seizure of Arsenals at Harper's Ferry, in which Trumbull strenuously defended the Republican Party against Democratic accusations of complicity in radical abolitionist violence.

Additionally, there is a significant group of works on the territorial conflict over Kansas, including crucial Congressional reports such as Report No. 200 on the Troubles in the Territory of Kansas, Jacob Collamer’s influential minority report against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, Schuyler Colfax’s exposing The "Laws" of Kansas, and official statements from the New England Emigrant Aid Company. The collection also captures key legislative debates involving Stephen A. Douglas, including his 1858 speeches on the Lecompton Constitution and the Pacific Railroad Bill, alongside critical Western political literature such as the 1858 Chicago printing of Lyman Trumbull’s Great Speech and Frank P. Blair’s address on Colonization and Commerce.

A remarkable, self-contained library of antebellum constitutional law, territorial politics, and abolitionist debate. 

The volume apparently assembled by Dr. Franklin Blades, 1830-1914. Dr. Franklin "Frank" Blades was an Illinois physician, lawyer, editor, and politician who played an active role in the rise of the Republican Party. Born in Indiana in 1830, he practiced medicine in Illinois before entering politics as a staunch anti-slavery Republican, winning election to the Illinois House of Representatives in 1856 and again in 1860. During this era, he further advanced the anti-slavery movement by editing and publishing the Iroquois Republican newspaper between 1856 and 1860. Following the outbreak of the American Civil War, Dr. Blades served directly in the Union military as a surgeon for the 76th Illinois Infantry Regiment from August 1862 until March 1864. Later in 1864, his political prominence culminated in his service as an Illinois presidential elector for the Republican Party, where he officially cast his ballot to re-elect Abraham Lincoln. The first work signed by Blades on the title. 

[Dred Scott, Slavery] Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott Versus John. F. A. Sandford. December Term, 1856, by Benjamin C. Howard. Washington. Cornelius Wendell. 1857. First Edition. 239pp.

[With]

[Dred Scott] The Rendition of Fugitive Slaves. The Acts of 1793 and 1850 and the Decisions of the Supreme Court Sustaining Them. The Dred Scott Case - What the Court Decided. National Democratic Committee. 1860. 16pp. 

[With]

[Republican Party, Slavery] Press and Tribune Documents for 1860, No. 2. The Republican Party the Conservators of the Union. Speech Hon. Wm. H. Seward, in the Senate of the United States, February 29th, 1860. 10pp.

[With]

Speech of the Hon. Lyman Trumbull in Reply to Senator Douglas, in the Senate, February 29, 1860. pp.11-14 of the Previous.

[With]

Kansas Affairs. Report of the Special Committee Appointed to Investigate the Troubles in the Territory of Kansas, etc., House of Representatives. 34th Congress. Report No. 200. 29pp. 

[With]

[Harper's Ferry, John Brown] Remarks of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, on Seizure of Arsenals at Harper's Ferry, VA., and Liberty, MO., and in Vindication of the Republican Party and its Creed, in Response to Senators Chesnut, Yulee, Clay, and Pugh. Delivered in the United States Senate, December 6, 7, and 8, 1859. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1859. 16pp.

[With]

Speech of William H. Seward, Delivered at Rochester, Monday, October 25, 1858. 8pp. 

[With]

Land for the Landless. Tract No. II. Published by the Republican Association of Washington, under the Direction of the Congressional Republican Executive Committee.  1860. 8pp.

[With]

Speech of Senator Dougles, of Illinois, on the Pacific Railroad Bill. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, April 17, 1858. 8pp.

[With]

Speech of Senator Douglas, of Illinois, on the Kansas-Lecompton Constitution, and the Report of the Committee of Conference. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, April 29, 1858. 8pp.

[With]

The Army of the United States not to be Employed as a Police to Enforce the Laws of the Conquerors of Kansas. Speech of William H. Seward, on The Army Bill. In the Senate of the United States, August 7, 1856. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1856. 15pp.

[With]

Kansas and the Compromises. Speech of Hon. Jesse O. Norton, of Illinois. In the House of Representatives, August 9, 1856. 8pp.

[With]

The President's Message. Speech of Hon. J. Collamer, of Vermont. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, December 9, 1856. Office of the Congressional Globe. 16pp. 

[With]

Defence of the Republican Party. Speech of Hon. Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, on the President's Message. In the Senate of the United States, December 19, 1856. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1857. 16pp.

[With]

The Relative Powers of the Senate and House of Representatives. Speech of William H. Seward. In the Senate of the United States, February 7, 1856. 8pp.

[With]

The State of Affairs in Kansas. Speech of Hon. Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. In the Senate, February 18, 1856. Washington, D. C., Published by the Republican Association of the District of Columbia. Buell & Blanchard. 1856. 16pp.

[With]

Who Are Sectional? George M. Weston. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1856. 8pp. 

[With]

[Slavery] Freedom National - Slavery Sectional. Speech of Hon. John J. Perry, of Maine, on the Comparative Nationality and Sectionalism of the Republican and Democratic Parties. In the House of Representatives, May 1, 1856. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1856. 16pp. 

[With]

[Misstatements Regarding the New England Emigrant Aid Company] To the People of the United States. The Executive Committee of the New England Emigrant Aid Company . . .Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1856 8pp. 

[With]

The Immediate Admission of Kansas as a State. Speech of Hon. William H. Seward, of New York. In the Senate of the United States, April 9, 1856. 16pp.

[With]

Defence of Massachusetts. Speech of Hon. Anson Burlingame, of Massachusetts, in the House of Representatives, June 21, 1856. 8pp.

[With]

The "Laws" of Kansas. Speech of Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, in the House of Representatives, June 21, 1856. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1856. 16pp.

[With]

Kansas Affairs in the Senate. Minority Report of the Senate Committee on Territories. Made March 12, 1856, by Judge Collamer of Vermont. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1856. 15pp.

[With]

Admission of Kansas. Speech of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, July 2, 1856. Office of the Congressional Globe. 1856. 8pp.

[With]

Affairs in Kansas Territory. Speech of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois, Delivered in the Senate of the United States, March 14, 1856. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1856. 16pp.

[With]

Great Speech of Hon. Lyman Trumbull, on the Issues of the Day. Delivered in Chicago, Saturday, August 7th, 1858. [Campaign Prospectus of the Consolidated Chicago Press and Tribune - Final Leaf] Press and Tribune Mammoth Steam Printing, 43 Clare Street, Chicago. 1858. 16pp. 

[With]

Who Have Violated Compromises. Speech of Hon. John Hickman, of Pennsylvania. Delivered in the House of Representatives, December 12, 1859. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchards. 1859. 8pp.

[With]

Tract for Americans. Fillmore's Political History and Position. George Law and Chauncey Shaffer's Reasons for Repudiating Fillmore and Donelson, And the Action of the Know-Nothing State Convention at Syracuse on the Resolutions censuring Broooks's Assault on Senator Sumner, &c. Speech of the Hon. E. B. Morgan of New York. The Tribune. 1856. 16pp.

[With]

The Crime Against Kansas. The Apologies for the Crime. The True Remedy. Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner. In the Senate of the United States, 19th and 20th May, 1856. Washington, D. C. Buell & Blanchard. 1856. 32pp.

[With]

Colonization and Commerce. An Address before the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati, Ohio, November 29, 1859 by Frank P. Blair, Jun., of Missouri. 8pp.

[With]

Territorial Slave Code. Speech of Hon. Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. Delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 25, 1860. 16pp.

A superb sammelband in a generally very good state of preservation. A few items trimmed rather closely at the foredge, at times affecting the final letter of the lines. Dred Scott items retain very good margins. Bound in very sturdy library buckram. Utilitarian. We are happy to facilitate the collection being rehoused in a more period appropriate binding.