1810 THE BOOK THAT ENDED SLAVERY IN AMERICA. Rare Book on Race Owned by Thirteenth Amendment Swing Vote.

What a storied little volume.  The text of the present volume is that of Samuel Stanhope Smith [1751-1819], Presbyterian divine and later President of Princeton. At the Philosophical Society in 1787, he delivered what was, for the time, a significantly progressive set of lectures with regard to the origin and meaning of race, as well as theological and practical proposals for the future.  He argued, controversially for the time, that race was not "set," but environmentally conditioned. This he demonstrated practically by geography, etc., and even recording that house slaves over multiple generations tended to be lighter than field slaves. The import of it all was evident, i.e. that the "negro" race was not separate, something to be thought of as distinct from the white race, and thus not to be treated as less than or as less in the image of humanity's shared Creator. The lectures were delivered the same year that Wilberforce and Co formed the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and the Quakers and Benjamin Franklin petitioned the Constitutional Convention to make the abolition of slavery a part of the nation's founding documents. The work was foundational to abolitionist movements in England and in America, influenced Frederick Douglass, and it is thought was perhaps read by Abraham Lincoln.  This second edition, I mean, this very copy of the second edition, published in 1810, played a significant role in ending slavery in America. The copy bears the bookplate and signature of one of the largest slave-owners in Missouri, Representative to the United States Congress, James S. Rollins [1812-1888]. A Missourian and a slave-owner, he was actively engaged in the defense of slavery and the preservation of Southern Rights as a State politician, before being elected to the United States Congress in 1860. He ran as a Constitutional Unionist, and was re-elected as a Conservative Unionist [1862]. Up until 1863, he voted consistently for slavery and against the rights of both black American [free and slave] and Native Americans, even voting against allowing either to enlist in the Union Army, as he feared it would further enrage the South and amplify their desire to fight.  During the first two votes on the Thirteenth Amendment, he opposed it. He had been opposed to the Emancipation and feared the Thirteenth Amendment would seal the dissolution of the Union. Twice, in close votes, he was opposed.  As the most influential of the dissenters, Abraham Lincoln set his sights on Rollins. In a series of meetings in the Presidential Office, and even traveling to Missouri, Lincoln attempted to persuade Rollins that the only way to save the Union was to stand on the side of right. Lincoln argued, that as slavery was a moral evil, the nation would never settle into a stable peace so long as it existed. People of conscience would always rise up against it, again destabilizing the Union.  We have to wonder if during this conversations, Stanhope Smith's humanizing work on the slaves came to mind, assuring him that these were in fact brothers and sisters; that taking a stand against slavery was both right morality and right politics. At the Third vote, Lincoln needing somewhere between 2-4 votes, Rollins stood up and addressed his fellow former "nay" voters and declared his intention to vote in favor. The Thirteenth Amendment passed, with Rollins' help, and slavery was formally abolished in the United State of America.  The James S. Rollins papers are housed at the Historical Society of Missouri and would be well-worth perusing to see if an even more formal linkage can be determined. To our knowledge, the only book on race and slavery owned by the man who made the Thirteenth pass.  Smith, Samuel Stanhope. An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species. To Which are Added, Animadversions on Certain Remarks Made on the First Edition of this Essay, By Mr. Charles White, in a Series of Discourses Delivered Before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester in England. Also, Strictures on Lord Kaims' Discourse on the Original Diversity of Mankind, and an Appendix. By Samuel Stanhope Smith, D.D. L.L.D. President of the College of New-Jersey; and Member of the American Philosophical Society. The Second Edition....Enlarged and Improved. New-Brunswick. Published by J. Simpson and Co. 1810. 411pp. A good - copy only, bound in leather with the boards detached. Text is generally solid, with light to moderate foxing, handled pages, and toned throughout.