[Nat Turner's lawyer's copy?] The Federalist, on The New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788, by Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Jay, with An Appendix, Containing the Letters of Pacificus and Helvidius, on the Proclamation of Neutrality of 1793; Also, the Original Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States, with the Amendments Made Thereto. A New Edition, Written by Mr. Madison Corrected by Himself

Washington DC: Jacob Gideon, 1818. First Edition thus. Hardcover. Very good +. Octavo, 671pp. A beautiful copy, bound to style in full brown calf with morocco spine label, stamped in gilt, retaining original front endpapers. Mild to moderate internal foxing, but a sound, complete, and handsome example of this important edition of The Federalist, overall very good or better. From the publisher's Prefatory Remarks:

"The present edition of the Federalist contains all the numbers of that work, as revised by their authors; and it is the only one to which the remark will apply. Former editions, indeed, it is understood, had the advantage of a revisal from Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Jay, but the numbers written by Mr. Madison still remained in the state in which they originally issued from the press, and contained many inaccuracies. The publisher of this volume has been so fortunate as to procure from Mr. Madison the copy of the work which that gentleman had preserved for himself, with corrections of the papers, of which he is the author, in his own hand."

A book that needs no further introduction, this is a significant edition, which finally brought into publication Madison's updated and revised contributions, and also re-arranged the attribution of certain papers to the various authors. Naturally, there has been some historical disputation between Madison's and Hamilton's respective recollections of authorship.

Provenance: This particular copy bears the contemporary bookplate of one William C. Parker on the front paste-down. This is almost certainly the same William C. Parker who was one of several lawyers appointed to defend Nat Turner after his historic rebellion in Southampton County, VA in 1831. According to a letter from the Governor's Office held by the Library of Virginia, "The prisoner Nat, alias Nat Turner, was set to the Bar in custody of the Jailer of the County- and WIlliam C. Parker is by the Court assigned Counsel for the Prisoner in his defence[...]" Parker was a prominent citizen of Jerusalem, where the rebellion took place, and had been among the white citizens who "defended" the town from the rebellious slaves. He had given a physical description of Turner to the authorities during Turner's weeks-long time as a fugitive. He was one of four lawyers appointed by the State of Virginia to defend Turner. According to historian Alfred L. Brophy, the four attorneys (Thomas Ruffin Gray the best known among them) were likely divided in their desire to bring any semblance of justice to the doomed Turner. Parker, naturally, would have been among those less inclined to do so (for more on this topic, see Alfred L. Brophy, The Nat Turner Trials, 91 N.C. L. Rev. 1817 (2013)). Though Gray is best known (due to his publication of "The Confessions of Nat Turner" in the wake of the trial, and his subsequent portrayal in William Styron's novelization of these events), Parker was the defense attourney of record in the case.

A later inscription of one Wm. M. Turner of Hick's Ford [later Hicksford], VA, is present on the front free endpaper. Turner was a graduate of Brown University (1855, the year of his inscription), and became a surgeon. He served in the Confederate Navy during the Civil War, and later moved north to Philadelphia, where he practiced until his death in 1877. Though we are unable to establish any connection between William M. Turner (a white man) and Nat Turner, it's quite possible, since Hick's Ford was only a few miles away from Jerusalem, that Turner is a descendant or relative of Benjamin Turner, the planter who "owned" Nat. We have been unable to establish a definitive connection, though it seems more than a little likely that some connection exists.

Altogether a genuinely interesting and beautiful copy of this important edition of America's foundational legal text, with appealing provenance.