215.     HAMILTON, A[ndrew] J[ackson]. Message of Governor A.J. Hamilton to the Texas State Convention. Delivered February 10, 1866. Austin: Printed at the State Gazette Book and Job Office, 1866. [1-3] 4-14 pp. 8vo (20 x 13.6 cm), disbound. Ink library stamp and old ms. ink note on title indicating this copy is a duplicate from the New Jersey Historical Society. Signed by A.B. Norton, chairman of the Texas delegation to the Constitutional Union party convention in May, 1860, where he urged the nomination of Houston for president (Handbook of Texas Online: Anthony Banning Norton). Blank right margin of title slightly chipped, overall a very good copy, with original invoice from Midland Rare Book Company laid in. Scarce.

     First edition. Eberstadt, Texas 162:107. Midland 69:491: “Superb message by the provincial (Reconstruction) Governor. Alabama-born, like Norton, [Hamilton] was an ardent pro-Unionist and had to flee the state after secession. Presentation inscription by A. Banning Norton; who had also returned to Texas (from Ohio), and here inscribes himself as a member of the Convention.” Winkler 1541: “Appears also as pages 16-27 of the Journal of the Texas State Convention assembled at Austin, February 7, 1866.” Handbook of Texas Online: Constitutional Convention of 1866:

The governor made it clear that half measures would not satisfy the U.S. government and warned the delegates that hasty action might postpone indefinitely the day Texas would be represented in Congress. As minimum requirements for restoration of normal relations with the Union he…set out: that the right of secession must be specifically denied; that acquiescence must be given to the abolition of slavery; that a fair and impartial determination of the social and political status of the freedmen must be arrived at; and that the debt incurred by the state in the prosecution of the war must be repudiated.

In this address Hamilton specifically warns against disenfranchising African-American citizens, although he is not opposed to putting qualifications on their rights to vote and exercise other civil liberties, such as access to courts. He bluntly warns that the Civil War has permanently settled the question of slavery and that it will never be tolerated again in the U.S. unless some catastrophic period of darkness and decline should fall on the country.

($150-300)

Auction 22 Abstracts