REMARKS CONCERNING THE GOVERNMENT AND THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: IN FOUR LETTERS ADDRESSED TO MR. ADAMS

Dublin: Messrs. Moncrieffe, Jenkin, Walker, et al., 1785. First Dublin Edition. Hardcover. Octavo, [8], 280 pages, [4]. In Very Good minus condition. Full contemporary calf, with morocco spine label and gilt lettering. Boards show light plus bumping to corners, light wear to tail of spine, moderate chipping to leather at head of spine, faint cracking to leather along joints, and light wear overall. Textblock has light plus age-toning and moderate foxing to edges, and moderate foxing interiorly overall. RW Consignment. Shelved in Case 7. Written in the form of four letters to then-US Minister to Holland, John Adams, the radical French political theorist Gabriel Bonnot Mably (popularly known as the Abbe de Mably) analyzes the government and laws of the nascent United States. The Remarks was released during a surge in pre-Revolutionary French interest in US governmental institutions, and de Mably specifically "offers advice on a national constitution, urging a loose federation rather than a strong central government and warning against excessive democracy." (Cohen).




Mably met Adams when the latter was in Paris in the early 1780s, and he approached Adams about his interest in writing a book on the American Revolution. Adams encouraged the undertaking, and his Defence of the Constitutions was written, in part, as a response to Mably's critiques. Mably is widely seen as an intellectual fore-runner of the French Revolution, being an advocate both of radical republicanism and the abolition of private property. 1352074. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.