Concessions and Compromises.

“Madness seems to rule the hour…”


Urgently-toned tract attributed to John Francis Fisher (1807–1873), published in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 election as president and amid the “hot” talk of secession.

Fisher compromisingly calls for enforcement of the Fugitive Slave laws, but with some modifications. He further placates Southern sympathizers with a call to deny African Americans citizenship and the right to vote and for a sectionally balanced U.S. Supreme Court. Lending further urgency is a printed notice on the upper cover: “Read, and lend to your Neighbors.”

Fisher, a scion of a prominent Philadelphia Quaker family and advocate for the education of the blind, married into a South Carolina slave-holding family. “He wrote Concessions and Compromises (1860), a pamphlet that proposed certain changes in the method of enforcing the provisions of the Constitution touching upon slavery. Although his own political views were conservative…his sympathies in the Civil War were with the Confederacy because he felt that the South as a section had been unfairly treated by the North as a section.” (DAB)


Description: Concessions and Compromises.

Philad. C.Sherman & Son, Printers [1860]. 14, [2(blank)]pp. 8vo. Original printed wrappers; sewn. Staining in margins along top and fore-edges, not affecting text; vertical fold; some separation of wrappers along spine; good.

[3728062]

Attributed to J.F. Fisher. Cf. NUC pre-1956 imprints. Sabin 24475.


Price: $150.00