Beschreibung:

Constitution of the Confederate States of America. Adopted Unanimously by the Congress of the Confederate States of America, March 11, 1861.
Montgomery, AL: Shorter & Reid, Printers, 1861. 8vo (250 x 155 mm). 22 pp., 8vo (245 x 155 mm). Stitched self-wrappers, uncut. Housed in a modern clamshell case. Condition: foxing, heaviest to first few leaves, edge tears professional repaired with Japanese tissue. Provenance: Lyman Gibbons, delegate from Monroe County, AL to the Confederate Constitutional Convention (signed three times on front wrapper). superlatively rare final constitution of the confederate states, this copy belonging to a delegate to the convention. On 4 February 1861, delegates from the seceded southern states convened in Montgomery to draft a constitution to unite toward their common cause and defense. After several drafts, this final version was approved by a vote of the delegates on 11 March and printed here for the first time that day. The document, similar in language to the United States Constitution, asserts in its preamble that “each state acting in its sovereign and independant character in order to … establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and insure the blessings of liberty to ourselves … establish this Consititution for the Confederate States of America.” In regards to slavery, the constitution prohibited the importation of of slaves from outside the Confederacy but provided that no law could be passed to infringe on a person’s right to own slaves there and in new territories. Lyman Gibbons (1808-1879), the original owner of this copy, was the lone delegate from Monroe County, Alabama to the convention and was also a signer of Alabama’s ordinance of seccession in January 1861. Only the Thomas W. Streeter and Jay Snider copies have appeared at auction since the Streeter sale in 1967. Crandall 7; Confederate One Hundred 15; De Renne 621; Harwell 2; Parrish and Willingham 8; Streeter Sale1276.