Beschreibung:

NORTHWEST TERRITORY - MAXWELL'S CODE] Laws of the Territory of the United States North-West of the Ohio . Cincinnati: Printed by W. Maxwell, 1796. First edition. Nineteenth century half calf over marbled boards, the spine with red and black lettering labels, housed in a folding case. 7 5/8 x 5 7/8 inches (19.3 x 14.3 cm), printed on laid paper with chain lines 1 inch apart. Pagination: Title (verso blank), [iii]-xiii (verso blank), [15]-225 pp. inclusive of the Appendix and Table of Laws. Collation by signatures: [A]1 B-2F^4 (2F4 verso blank). Boards detached and worn, a two inch section of the upper right corner of title excised not affecting text (likely a former signature), this loss renewed, title also with small stains, some abrasions and neat Bar Association stamps to verso, small paper renewal to inner corner of B4, a faint old dampstain to fore-margin, inner margin with stab holes where once sewn, these holes browned at places. Signature Y with a printer's error (when printing, the inner forme was misimposed relative to the outer, the text mispositioned as a consequence) resulting in loss of the page numbers on pp. 166-67 (lost when the binder trimmed) and with Y2 and Y3 both short as a result, these pages numbered in blue crayon in the lower margin. Paper flaw to Bb1, the final leaves somewhat stained and with paper renewal to corner of final leaf, the terminal endpapers with an old catalogue entry affixed and blue crayon markings, overall an internally clean copy with few markings. Sold with a circa 1890 facsimile edition. AN UNRECORDED COMPLETE COPY OF MAXWELL'S CODE, THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED IN OHIO, WHICH GUIDED WESTERN EXPANSION INTO THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY- A NOTED AMERICAN RARITY. In 1787, the first Congress of the United States proposed the Northwest Ordinance which provided a government for the Northwest Territory and established its boundaries as between the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the east and the west and the Great Lakes to the north. The Ordinance also supplied provisions on the expansion of the United States and suggested borderlines for the creation of at least three but no more than five new states which could be admitted into the Union once a population of 60,000 residents had been reached. The provision that had the greatest political influence was that no slavery be permitted - a provision that greatly affected the free/slave state divide in the years before the Civil War. In this work, the 1787 Northwest Ordinance is printed in full as a preface. The Act to Provide for the Government of the Territory North-West of the River Ohio was officially put into law by President Washington in 1789 and represented the new nation's first attempt at organized Western expansion, one of the most important acts in American history. In 1787, Arthur St. Clair was appointed Governor of the Northwest Territory and, despite some initial successful treaty signings, spent the next several years engaged in military campaigns against Native Americans in what is known as Little Turtle's War. With "Mad" Anthony Wayne's victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers near present day Toledo, settlers confidently came to Ohio and populated the new town of Cincinnati, re-named by St. Clair for the Society of American Revolution veterans of which he was a member. In mid-1795 St. Clair and two judges compiled the thirty-seven laws of the territory, each of which had been previously passed in another state (mostly Pennsylvania). Upon completion, the legislature ordered 200 copies to be printed by William Maxwell the first newspaper publisher in the town. Maxwell encouraged subscription to the work and advertised it in his paper, The Centinel of the North-Western Territory. It is unknown how many copies were actually printed and distributed. It is the first book printed in Ohio. The Laws quickly became known as "Maxwell's Code" for the achievement of its intrepid printer. Being the only law volume of its kind in the territory, the