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Original issue of The Massachusetts Gazette, Boston, Friday, April 20, 1787, Vol. VI, No. 323, printed and published by Samuel Hall in State Street, Boston.
An unusually content-rich pre-Constitution newspaper with significant material relating to John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, American constitutional government, and the establishment of the American episcopate.
The April 20, 1787 Boston news announces John Adams\'s newly published A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, describing it as \"a very valuable book\" and printing a substantial passage from its preface. Adams argues for the preservation of popular rights and liberties through a strong and separate executive power. Elsewhere in the issue is an advertisement offering copies of Adams\'s Defence for sale at the Boston Book-Store.
The front page prints \"An Inquiry into the Effects of Publick Punishments upon Criminals, and upon Society,\" introduced by the newspaper as a treatise \"said to have been written by that justly celebrated philosopher, Doctor Franklin.\" The essay was actually written by Benjamin Rush and had been read before the Society for Promoting Political Enquiries at Benjamin Franklin\'s house in Philadelphia on March 9, 1787. The contemporary attribution to Franklin makes this an especially interesting example of the early newspaper circulation of Rush\'s influential penal-reform argument.
The issue also reports on the historic consecration of American bishops at Lambeth Palace, explaining that the ceremony would enable the new American church to perpetuate its own episcopate without future journeys to England. It reports that the Bishop of New York and Bishop of Philadelphia had been consecrated at Lambeth Palace.
Additional contents include extensive American and European news, maritime reports, political commentary, period advertisements, shipping notices, and other material providing a vivid picture of American public life in the spring of 1787, just weeks before the Constitutional Convention assembled in Philadelphia.
Four pages, complete.
Condition: Good overall for an original newspaper from 1787. Age toning, foxing and staining throughout, with edge wear, small marginal losses and evidence of previous binding along the left edge. Small corner and edge defects as shown. Printing remains generally strong and the text is readily legible. Please examine photographs carefully for the exact Gazette April 20 1787, 1787 newspaper, John Adams Defence Constitutions, Defence of the Constitutions, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, public punishments, Constitutional Convention, United States Constitution, Founding Fathers, Federal Convention 1787, American bishops, Lambeth Palace, Episcopal Church, Samuel Hall Boston, Revolutionary America, early American newspaper, 18th century newspaper, Americana
