Free Press - First Stepping Stone to Modern Civil Liberties

FREEDOM OF PRESS , Abner

First Edition

[Freedom of the Press] First Edition. Report of the Arguments of the Attorney of the Commonwealth at the Trials of Abner Kneeland. Boston: Beals, Homer, 1834. First Edition.Self-wrappers. 93 pages. 8vo. Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Abner Kneeland was a Massachusetts state court case originating from statements written by Kneeland in 1833, and decided in 1838, which is notable for being the last time a court in the United States jailed a defendant for blasphemy. The case went through four trials resulting in a sixty day jail sentence. Supporters, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Lloyd Garrison, called for his release.

Kneeland, a Universalist minister and advocate of Rationalism, disdained societal mores, preferring naturalistic and personal quests for truth. He believed in equal treatment for all people, both under the law as well as by society. Kneeland applied this even when religious scripture would seem to indicate different roles. This included support of such controversial ideas as divorce rights for women, married women keeping their own names and property, and refusal to condemn miscegenation (now known as interracial marriage), and was also in favor of birth control. He allowed fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison the use of his lecture hall when the churches in Boston had turned him away. It was his essays written for the Boston Investigator in 1833, calling into question the nature of God, which led to his arrest for Blasphemy. In Kneeland’s day it seemed that everyone was obliged to either love him or hate him. While Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Lloyd Garrison gathered and presented a long list of signatures calling for his release, an even longer petition was produced by those who wanted him kept in jail. And while the impression of the judge in his case was that Kneeland was "a cantankerous and inflexible heretic," his own friend wrote of the experience, "Abner was jugged for sixty days; but he will come out as beer from a bottle, all foaming." Paper browned as usual, last signature sprung. A wonderful piece of history showing that the rights we hold dear today did not arise from within our laws fully formed, but took trial and sacrifice from brave citizens to lift them to the place they hold today.

Item #15609

Price: $880.00