Thomas Jefferson

Broadside printed on silk (21 1/2 x 16 1/2 in.; 546 x 419 mm) of Jefferson's first inaugural address; browned and backed, tack holes along edges from previous mounting. Matted, glazed, and framed.

Shaw & Shoemaker 718. OCLC (191261813, 84157111) identifies only two examples of this broadside in institutional holdings (University of Virginia; Huntington Library).

As described in catalogue entry.
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JEFFERSON'S CELEBRATED INAUGURAL SPEECH OF 4 MARCH 1801, MARKING THE FIRST TRULY PARTISAN ELECTION FOR THE U. S. PRESIDENCY. Although the race between Adams and Jefferson was a bitter one, it resulted in the first peaceful transfer of power to an opposition party.  The tenor of this great speech is conciliatory and it is worth quoting as the election of 2016 fast approaches: "… though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable … the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind; let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things. and let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we countenance a political intolerance, as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions … every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans; we are all federalists."

By the time this broadside was printed, the text of Jefferson's address had appeared in a number of newspapers from Washington to as far south as Charleston and as far north as Boston.  It had already appeared in broadside form in both New York as a supplement to the Mercantile Advertiser on 9 March, and in Philadelphia, printed by Matthew Carey, a few days later. This Boston printing was published on 19 March, with most copies printed "on the finest imperial woven paper." The publisher also noted that "a few copies will be struck on white satin — at different prices" (from an advertisement in the Independent Chronicle, 19 March 1801); this is one of the premium copies.

RARE.