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vi,[9]-149,[6]pp. Later plain wrappers, paper label. Wrappers edgeworn, splitting along front hinge. Light, even tanning. About very good. In a half morocco box. This copy bears the ownership signature of Elisha Boudinot on page 29. The tract's author, William Griffith, studied law in Boudinot's office in Newark before being admitted to the bar in 1788. Boudinot's brother, Elias, was an important New Jersey lawyer and politician, a member of the Continental Congress in the 1770s and '80s, and a U.S. Representative from 1789 to 1795. This scarce collection of essays by William Griffith, a prominent Burlington lawyer and legal writer, argues for the revision of the Revolutionary-era New Jersey constitution. The original constitution, crafted over a period of five days and signed just before the Declaration of Independence, was a document that did little more than proclaim the state's independence from royal authority and establish a basic framework for government. In these essays, some of which had been printed in the STATE GAZETTE, Griffith sought to "bring home to every man's heart, a conviction of the actual evils which arise out of the theoretic errors of the constitution." The fifty-three essays point out the defects in the constitution and describe Griffith's alternatives on issues such as the judiciary, representation, etc. Though Griffith and his Federalist cohorts supported revising the 1776 constitution, the Republicans in the state opposed revision and carried the day. The New Jersey constitution would not be revised until 1844. EVANS 35570. FELCONE 105. SABIN 28829. COHEN 3194. Seller Inventory # WRCAM36586
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