Continental Congress

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North-America, now Met in General Congress at Philadelphia, Seting [sic] forth the Causes and Necessity of their taking up Arms. Philadelphia: William and Thomas Bradford, 1775 [bound with:] The Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North America, now Met in General Congress at Philadelphia, Setting forth the Causes and Necessity of taking up Arms. The Letter of the Twelve United Colonies by their Delegates in Congress to the Inhabitants of Great Briatin, their Humble Petition to his Majesty, and their Address to the People of Ireland. Collected together for the Use of Serious Thinking Men, by Lovers of Peace. London, 1775

Together, 2 works in one volume, 8vo and 8vo in half-sheets (7 718 x 5 1/8 in.; 201 x 131 mm, preserving deckle at many margins in first work). First work: Half-title; half-title remargined at top, lightly soiled, and with a closed tear; title-page with a neatly closed tear through second line of title and upper fore-edge corner restored; Second work: title-page lightly soiled. Nineteenth-century half red morocco, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt; extremities rubbed, rear joint broken, miniscule puncture hole through front cover and extending to fourth leaf of second work.

Aquisition: William Reese

American edition: Adams, American Controversy 75-149a; Evans 14544; Howes D198; Sabin 15522; Streeter 2:763. Britsh edition: Adams, American Controversy 75-149b

First pamphlet printing of one of the most important congressional precursors of the Declaration of Independence: the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms; bound with the first British edition. The writing of The Declaration of the Causes was, like the Declaration of Independence, assigned to a committee; but in fact it was largely the work of Thomas Jefferson; John Dickinson also played a prominent role in the final language of the document. The Declaration of Causes and Necessity was one of the first attempts by Congress to justify to their constituents and to the greater world the need for armed resistance to the crown. John Adams, for one, approved, writing in a 6 July 1775 letter to William Tudor: "We have spent this whole Day in debating Paragraph by Paragraph a Manifesto as some call it, or a Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of our Taking up Arms. It will be printed Tomorrow, and shall be transmitted as Soon as possible. It has some Mercury in it, and is pretty frank, plain, and clear" (Letters of the Delegates to Congress, ed. Smith, 1:587).

The "mercury" is exhibited in the Declarations first paragraph: "If it was possible for men, who exercise their reason to believe, that the Divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute power in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination, never rightfully resistable, however severe and oppressive, the Inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require the Parliament of Great-Britain, some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them has been granted to that body." The text, issued over the name of John Hancock, as President of Congress, goes on to detail the losses of property and personal rights, as well the atrocities committed by the British at Lexington and Concord, that have compelled them to take up arms.

This very scarce first American pamphlet edition was preceded only by a printing of the Declaration of the Causes in the 10 July 1775 issue of the Pennsylvania Packet and by a broadside "Postscript" to the Pennsylvania Gazette, 12 July. The first British edition also prints several other addresses by the Continental Congress, including its final overture towards concilation, the Olive Branch Petition, which appears here with the names of all its signatories. The British edition, issued without a printer's name, was likely aimed at American sympathizers; its title-page bears the motto, "Read with Candour : Judge with Impartiality."