Is Davis a Traitor; or Was Secession a Constitutional Right Previous to the War of 1861? by Bledsoe, Albert Taylor (1809 - 1877) - 1866

Baltimore: Printed for the Author By Innes & Company, 1866. First Edition . Dark Green Pebbled Cloth. Very Good/No Jacket as Issued. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Contains 263 pp., some shelf wear, both the front and rear boards appear to have been stressed down the center by bending but now lie flat and secure. INSCRIBED by the author - "To Miss Annie Crowley / with the kind regards & best wishes of / The Author / April 18th 1867." Also signed by previous owner (perhaps a married Annie Crowley) - "Anna H. Hall '96." Bledsoe was appointed from Kentucky to the U.S. Military Academy and graduated in 1830, after which he served in the army at Fort Gibson, Indian territory, until 1832. He was mathematics & French professor at Kenyon College in Ohio and professor of mathematics at Miami from 1835-36. He studied theology and was ordained a clergyman in the Episcopal church in 1835. He had previously studied law and practiced in Springfield, IL and Washington, DC from 1838 to 1848. He was professor of mathematics at the University of Mississippi (1848 - 1854) and at the University of Virginia (1854 to 1861). In 1861 he entered confederate service as a colonel but was soon made Chief of the War Bureau and Acting Assistant Secretary of War. After the civil war, he began publication of the Southern Review and published the work at hand that defends the rights of the South to secede and presented an impassioned defense of Jefferson Davis. His work ends with a quote from John Tyler from 1787, "I also wish to hand down to posterity my opposition to that system. British tyranny would have been more tolerable.