Sold – Quincy Adams’ Book “The Jubilee of the Constitution: a Discourse,” Signed

In 1839, the New York Historical Society asked ex-President John Quincy Adams to give a speech on the Constitution of the United States. Adams was a Harvard-trained lawyer who was known for his tenacity in the fight for human rights and against slavery. In a tightly reasoned discourse, Adams looked at the roots of the Constitution in the Declaration of Independence. At that point, he argued, the united people of the American colonies declared their independence as a group, rather than the state governments declaring themselves to be independent states. This was the exact same tack taken by Abraham Lincoln two decades later. After this, Adams went on to examine the framing and enacting of the Constitution and the early history of the American republic.   

A first edition of the book “The Jubilee of the Constitution: a Discourse,” 1839, 136 pages, with an engraving of Washington’s inauguration as a frontispiece, inscribed and signed “Hon. Richard Fletcher from John Quincy Adams.” The subtitle states that it was “delivered at the request of the New York Historical Society in the city of New York, on tuesday, the 30th of April 1839; being the fiftieth anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States, on Thursday, the 30 April, 1789.” The book has been beautifully rebound in green leather with gold trim and marbled boards. Fletcher served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts, and later went on to sit on the Massachusetts Supreme Court.   

Only two signed copies of this book turn up in a search of auction records for the past 35 years, and none in over a decade.