ORATION DELIVERED IN THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, JULY 4, 1857

Pickett, Charles Edward

Verlag: Whitton, Towne & Co's Excelsior Steam Press, San Francisco, 1857

32pp. A few pages with contemporary pencil corrections (see below). Original printed yellow wrappers. Wrappers moderately soiled and edge worn, tear along lower portion of rear joint. Old tape repair in upper edge of inner rear wrapper and upper edge of final text page (touching, but not obscuring, three lines of text). A bit of soiling to text. Very good. In a cloth chemise and cloth slipcase, gilt leather label. A presentation copy, inscribed at the beginning of the text: "Genl. M.G. Vallejo with Respects of the Orator." Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (1808-90) was one of the most consequential figures in 19th-century California political and military history. Stationed at the Monterey garrison as a fifteen-year-old cadet, he was involved in putting down Indian uprisings and in guarding California's frontier lands against Russian encroachments. Vallejo was one of the "Californios" who sought independence from Mexico in 1836, amassed huge land holdings, became a supporter of American statehood for California, and served in the first session of the California state senate. In our experience, books inscribed to Vallejo are quite uncommon. This copy contains several instances of pencil corrections, almost certainly in Pickett's hand. Charles Edward "Philosopher" Pickett (1820- 82) was born in Virginia and moved to Oregon in 1842, before coming to California in 1846. He practiced law in San Francisco, lived at Sonoma, visited Hawaii, and kept a store for a time at Sutter's Fort. Cowan wrote of him that he "was an able but greatly eccentric character. He wrote many pamphlets, and, from whichever point of view they may be regarded, their deeply radical nature cannot fail to engross the interested reader." Hart describes him as "a dabbler in law, a political and polemical pamphleteer, and an agitator for the Confederacy. The subjects of his quixotic attacks included Ralston, Stanford, the Silver Kings, and Stephen J. Field. Bancroft called him San Francisco's Diogenes." In this Fourth of July oration, delivered at the Congregational Church in Sacramento, Pickett castigates politicians and newspapers and, in his typically contrarian manner, argues against the idea that democracy is the best form of government, preferring instead absolute monarchy, "provided a sovereign be wise and virtuous." He contends that California is already in decline, criticizes the "thirst for gold, the money-making mania of the day," and foresees a "dissolution of the American Confederacy." He also defends slavery in the strongest terms, and warns against miscegenation, wherein "women of Caucasian lineage" would "become the dams of a rising breed of tawny hybrids." The most recent copy of Pickett's oration listed in Rare Book Hub was offered at a Parke Bernet auction in 1953, described as "Inscribed to Senorita Natalia Vallego [sic], with kindest regards and admiration of the Orator." GREENWOOD 852. COWAN, p.485. ROCQ 6804. JOHNSON, JAMES WELD TOWNE, p.141. HART, COMPANION TO CALIFORNIA, p.328. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers WRCAM57375

Bibliografische Details

Titel: ORATION DELIVERED IN THE CONGREGATIONAL ...
Verlag: Whitton, Towne & Co's Excelsior Steam Press, San Francisco
Erscheinungsdatum: 1857