[Federal Constitution of 1787] A Sermon, Preached before His Excellency the President, the Honorable Council, and the Honorable the House of Representatives of the State of New-Hampshire, June 7, 1787. By Joseph Buckminster, A.M. Pastor of the First Church in Portsmouth by Joseph Buckminster (1751-1812)

Portsmouth [N.H.] Printed, and to be sold, by Robert Gerrish. M.DCC.LXXXVII. [1787]. First Edition. half-title, 30pp., stitched. In fours; lacks final blank leaf, i.e., D4 and errata. Old emphasis in margin of p24. Portions of half-title and title-page with old dampstains; light foxing.

An important 1787 election sermon preached at the time of the U.S. Constitutional Convention and discussing "paper-money" by the Rev. Joseph Buckminster (1751-1812), prominent Portsmouth, New Hampshire Congregationalist minister and orthodox Calvinist.

Addressing a General Court of the State of New Hampshire, Buckminster preached on the need for wisdom and justice in government, specifically noting the Constitutional Convention, then sitting in Philadelphia:

"No Princes of any people, or representatives of freemen, were ever chosen to higher or more important business than what will, probably, come before those who are honoured with these titles in the United States the present year. The General Assembly of this State was, perhaps, never convened at a season that called louder for the wisdom of the wife, the understanding of the aged, the speech of the trusty, or the guidance of him who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. (pp5-6)"

After preaching on a text from 1 James, Ch. 5, Buckminster turns to the political business of New Hampshire. He writes about the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and addresses, at some length, issues of trade and commerce, specifically rejecting paper money and later writing that "America is approaching a most interesting crisis." (p27) He begins:

"Concerns of the highest moment will, doubtless, come before you, in the course of the present year... Before the year expires you will, probably, have laid before you the resolutions of the Convention for revising the Confederation, by whose determinations and the consequent conduct of the States, it is supposed, the interests of this new empire will be greatly affected; and a way opened for her rising into greatness, or closed against all her future prospects. In an affair of such magnitude seek instruction from him whose ministers you are, and give suffrages as those that feel the fate of millions hanging on their hand.... The embarrassed state of our finances; the pressure of public and private debts; and ways and means of relief; will, probably, employ many of your hours; and it is not impossible that the subject of paper-money will again call up your attention.... If the circulating medium could be increased, it would probably afford some relief in our present exigencies; and, if the legislature of New-Hampshire are in possession of the fancied philosopher's stone, or the fabled transmuting touch of Midas, they might listen to a proposal of paper-money; but if they are not, reason and experience reprobate the measure, as having a direct tendency to put out of circulation every shilling of hard money, as a mean of further embarrassment, and an engine of repression, fraud, and cruelty, and no wisdom, human or divine, can dictate a measure that leads to such evils.... The only probable way of increasing the circulating medium to the benefit of the public, is by giving up, forever, the idea of paper-money... (pp19-21, 23)"

Rev. Joseph Buckminster descended form an old New England family. His father was a Harvard-educated clergyman and his mother was a first cousin of Rev. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758); both his mother and Edwards descending from Rev. Solomon Stoddard (1643-1729), the first librarian at Harvard College. Buckminster, however, attended Yale College, possibly because his maternal uncle, Rev. Elisha Williams, had been Rector of that school. After graduating in 1770-and following three years of post-graduate studies at Yale on a scholarship, Buckminster remained there as a college tutor until 1777. Following his ordination in 1779, he became pastor of the First Church (North Church) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the church where he was serving when the present sermon was preached and where he continued to serve until his death in 1812. In 1803, Buckminster received a Doctor of Divinity degree from the College of New Jersey [Princeton].

ANB notes that Buckminster's son and Unitarian minister, Joseph Stevens Buckminster (1784-1812) "made an enormous impact on Boston intellectual culture" and noting that he "was revered in Boston" with "extraordinary fervor."

Lacks final blank leaf, i.e., D4 and errata. Very scarce to commerce, with no auction records going back at least 45 years.

Evans 20253. ESTC W29307 (British Library, AAS, BA, BPL, Harvard, HSP, Peabody Essex, Rutgers, LOC). OCLC adds NYHS, Graduate Theological Union Library; Indiana University, Univ. of Minnesota, Dartmouth, NH Historical Society Library, JCB, American Congregational Asn (MA), Princeton Theological Seminary, UDEL, National Library of Scotland.  Refs. Lee, Memoirs of Rev. Joseph Buckminster, D.D., and of His Son, Rev. Joseph Stevens Buckminster (Boston, 1849). ANB and DAB for his son, Joseph Stevens Buckminster (1784-1812), the former with some references to his father.