1836 Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States Samuel Morse

Description: The primary condition issue is the detached front cover. The pages have some slight staining from age that are in good condition, and are attached to the spine. Willing to consider offers. Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States: The Numbers of Brutus, Originally Published in the New-York Observer, Revised and Corrected, With Notes. 4th Edition 1836. Samuel F. B. Morse (1791–1872) is perhaps best known as the inventor of the telegraph and the "Morse code" that bears his name. Those familiar with American art know him as an accomplished painter of landscapes, portraits, and ambitious history paintings such as the Gallery of the Louvre (1831–1832), a six-by-nine-foot panoramic containing thirty-eight miniaturized European old masters's paintings, including works by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Rembrandt. Morse played a prominent role in the establishment of the National Academy of Design in 1825 and served for more than two decades as its president. Because Morse is admired for these significant contributions to American history and culture, a less-appealing side of his personality is often overlooked: his intolerance toward Catholics and his nativist activism. Morse launched several public attacks on Roman Catholicism, including the publication in 1835 of Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the United States, a treatise warning Americans against the political influence of Roman Catholicism. Foreign Conspiracy ranks among the most virulent and paranoid of a flurry of anti-Catholic documents published during the antebellum period. Because of his European experiences, Morse felt well qualified to write this series of twelve letters under the pen name "Brutus" to expose, as his title indicated, A Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the United States. Despite the pseudonym Brutus, a reference to the Roman patriot who murdered the tyrant Julius Caesar, Morse's identity as author was generally well known. The serialization of Foreign Conspiracy in the New York Observer during 1834 began just weeks after an anti-Catholic incident in Morse's birthplace of Charlestown, Massachusetts: the burning of the Ursuline convent in August 1834. Morse's essay was reprinted in Congregational, Methodist, and Baptist journals and in the leading nativist papers. His first edition sold so well in book form that a second edition appeared almost immediately. Foreign Conspiracy was favorably reviewed in such anti-Catholic publications as the Downfall of Babylon and the American Protestant Vindicator. During Morse's 1836 run for mayor of New York on a nativist ticket, a fourth edition of Foreign Conspiracy appeared, issued by Van Nostrand and Dwight, sponsors of the notorious Canadian "escaped nun" Maria Monk. Morse was resoundingly defeated in the election, with a distant fourth-place finish. He made another unsuccessful bid for the seat in 1841 and then for Congress in 1854. A seventh edition of Foreign Conspiracy was issued in 1851, and a final edition appeared after his death.

Price: 795 USD

Location: Falls Church, Virginia

End Time: 2024-10-18T16:37:12.000Z

Shipping Cost: 5.38 USD