The Slave Power: Its Character, Career, and Probable Designs; Being an Attempt to Explain the Real Issues Involved in the American Contest by Cairnes, J.E - 1862

New York: Carleton, 1862. First American edition (first published the same year in London). 8vo. 171 pp. Preface: "Considering slavery as the true origin of the civil war now existing, [the author] treats of its economic basis, of the organization, tendencies, development, and external policy of slave societies, and of the career and designs of the slave power." At the time of publication, the author was serving as professor of jurisprudence and political economy at Queen's College, Galway. Sabin 9856. Nevins Civil War Books I, p. 249: "This Irish legal scholar asserted that the best interests of mankind rested on a thorough defeat of the South and the eradication of slavery." Work, p. 365. Blockson catalogue 9983 (for a 1968 reprint). LCP/HSP Afro-Americana 1929. Very good. Original purple cloth (spine and part of front board faded), gilt spine title (dull). (#5695).