(Winchester, Va.), 1833. Item #713

Broadside 4to. 290 x 160 mm., [11 ¼ x 6 ¼ inches].   Printed in two columns, signed in type by Charles J. Faulkner at Winchester, dated March 8, 1833, at conclusion. Lightly dust-soiled, pale stain affecting perhaps one-third of the left-hand margin and column of text. Neatly silked on verso. Withal, about very good.

Following the August, 1831, Nat Turner rebellion in Southampton County, a last effort was made by moderate Virginians to gradually abolish slavery. Faulkner, a 26-year-old lawyer and assemblyman, along with Thomas Jefferson Randolph, sponsored legislation to free all children born of slave parents after July 4, 1840. His speech emphasized the evil of slavery for Southern white labor, noting that slavery "converts the energy of the community into indolence--its power into imbecility--its efficiency into weakness....Shall society suffer, that the slave-holder may continue to gather his crop of human flesh?"

As the Assembly was malapportioned in favor of the Tidewater slaveocracy, the proposal lost rather narrowly, and nearly thirty years later the Confederacy was assured of Virginia's succession.

It is perhaps not surprising that Faulkner, "comparatively a stranger" to the county, but a member of the Virginia House of Delegates at this time (1831-34) was not successful in his campaign to represent Virginia in the U.S. Senate. However, Faulkner was elected to three terms in Congress from Virginia in the 1850s. He was elected to Congress from West Virginia after the Civil War. In the interim he served as Minister to France during the Buchanan administration and on the staff of Stonewall Jackson.

Dictionary of American Biography.  Not in Hummel. Not found in American Imprints for 1833 and not in the 1830-1839 title index. OCLC records four copies at The Library of Virginia, University of Virginia, Virginia Historical Society, and American Antiquarian Society.

Price: $750.00