A Speech Delivered before the Municipal Court of the City of Boston, in Defence of Abner Kneeland, on an Indictment for Blasphemy. January Term, 1834
Boston: Printed for the publishers, 1834. Wrappers. near Very Good binding. Item #10943
Octavo. 132 pp. First edition. Stitched. Outer leaves are toned and a bit soiled with some bug-spotting; some wear to those leaves as well; early ink "No. 65" at the top corner of the title page. Light foxing throughout, but generally a clean copy.
Kneeland was a Universalist minister whose thinking continued to press the boundaries of socially acceptable beliefs, challenging popular convention of the time. Though occasionally billed as an atheist, Kneeland was a self-professed pantheist, who did not spare the reading public his opinions about religion and god, publishing them in his Boston Investigator. And in 1833, he was charged and after a series of trials ultimately found guilty of blasphemy. Ralph E. McCoy in his Freedom of the Press summarizes this work: "An eloquent address in behalf of Abner Kneeland, delivered by his attorney who, while dissenting from the doctrine of the defendant, claimed for him 'the same legal right to the enjoyment, and the maintenance of his opinions, by his voice and his pen, which we claim for ourselves, as our political birthright, guaranteed by our glorious Revolution; and proclaimed in our glorious Revolution; and proclaimed in our immortal bill of Rights.' Dunlap based his defense on two grounds—the offense charged was not within the Statute and the Statue was a violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution. When the judge inquired of Kneeland's religious believe, Dunlap responded: 'That is an affair between him and God, not between him and your Honor. He does not consider that he is bound to make a confession of faith here.' Dunlap concluded his defense: 'If the defendant shall fall in this prosecution, a nobler victim will fall with him, for the blow which is aimed at the prisoner at the bar, is a fatal blow to the Constitution of this country.'" McCoy D282. The Revolutionary-era statute under which he was charged is reprinted on the verso of the title page. These laws and the trials resulting in convictions can be found scattered throughout the 19th century. Even though courts have affirmed that First Amendment rights protect against blasphemy in the 20th century, Kneeland's case and the arguments on which it hung feel as relevant today as ever.
After the dust settled in this years-long affair, Kneeland went west to get out of the spotlight. He died in Iowa in 1842. He was an important thinker and voice in the first half of the 19th century. Oliver Wendell Holmes noted that his "gentle courage, his temperate statement of opinions . . . threatened to shake the existing order of thought like an earthquake" (qtd in. Oxford American National Biography). American Imprints 24236.
Price: $200.00