A very scarce publication, not traced in the auction record or presently available in the trade; presumably issued as a very small original print run.
This 1861 Wisconsin publication includes early wartime legislative acts, governor's messages related to the war, and extensive military mobilization documents from the earliest days of the conflagration. And the legislature was busy. The text demonstrates the legislative energy necessary for a young Midwestern state to rapidly reoriente its legal, social, and military infrastructure for the war.
Wisconsin entered the war with a complex relationship to its black citizenry. The State had openly defied the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 just a few years prior through state supreme court rulings that declared the federal law unconstitutional. But there were still challenges for the on-the-ground legal reality for Black Americans in Wisconsin. While the state eagerly raised regiments to fight the slaveocracy, its constitution still denied black men the right to vote, a right finally secured through a landmark state supreme court case during the war.
The relationship with the State governemnt was similarly fraught for Native Americans, particularly the Ojibwe, Menominee, and Oneida nations. 1861 marked the beginning of a complex negotiations of Native American citizenship and sovereignty in the State. Despite facing systemic disenfranchisement and ongoing land loss, hundreds of Native men would ultimately enlist in Wisconsin regiments to fight for the Union.
In the broader context of the Civil War, these early documents signify the critical role the Old Northwest played in tipping the scales of the conflict, demonstrating that the fight to end slavery and preserve the nation was fueled not just by the East Coast, but by the rapid, organized mobilization of the American frontier.
Private and Local Laws Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin, in the Year Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-One. Madison, Wisconsin. Smith & Cullaton, State Printers - Argus Office. 1861. 406pp.
Good - in half sheep with paper boards, hinges weak and leather rubbed as shown. Textually very good, crisp and clean.
