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Title: First editions of two important attacks on the Adams administration during Thomas Jefferson's presidential campaign, plus speeches in the case against Harry Croswell for libel on Jefferson Author: Pinckney, Charles, & James Thomson Callender, et al. Place: Philadelphia, Richmond, New York Publisher: Date: 1799, 1800, 1804 Description: Comprises: Pinckney, Charles. Three Letters, Written, and Originally Published Under the Signature A South Carolina Planter. The First, on the case of Jonathan Robbins..., the Second, on the Recent Captures of American Vessels by British Cruisers..., the Third, on the Right of Expatriation... [2], 65 pp. Philadelphia: Aurora Office, 1799. Evans 36124; Howes P376; Sabin 62898. [bound with] [Callender, James] The Prospect Before Us. Volume I. 184 pp, Richmond, VA: Printed for the Author, and sold by M. Jones et al., 1800. Evans 37083; Sabin 10068. [plus] The Speeches at Full-Length of Mr. Van Ness, Mr. Caines, the Attorney-General, Mr. Harrison, and General Hamilton, in the Great Cause of the People, against Harry Croswell, on an Indictment for a Libel on Thomas Jefferson President of the United States.78 pp. New-York: Printed by G. & R. Waite, 1804. Howes V38. Three works. (8vo), the first two listed bound together in later cloth; third removed from larger volume with remains of stitching on spine. All housed in custom folding cloth box with niger morocco spine, with chemises. The attacks on the Adams administration and the Federalist Party were largely in response to the Sedition Act of 1798, and were led by Thomas Jefferson both legislatively and through secret funding of anti-Federalist tracts. One of the latter endeavors was The Prospect Before Us, with Jefferson providing money and inside information to James Callender, already notorious for exposing Alexander Hamilton's sexual affair with Maria Reynolds. Callender was subsequently imprisoned under the Alien and Sedition Acts, and later turned against his one-time patrons, going so far as to report on President Jefferson's alleged children by his slave concubine Sally Hemings. In 1803, Callender drowned, apparently falling in the James River due to intoxication. The legal case against Harry Crosswell was an important case in the evolution of United States defamation law, being a criminal libel case brought against Federalist journalist Harry Croswell for his statements about a number of public officials, including then-President Thomas Jefferson In a famous and lengthy argument on Croswell's behalf, Alexander Hamilton tried to convince the judges that truthful statements should not be considered defamatory, regardless of what they concerned. The judges deadlocked and Croswell's previous conviction stood, although he was never sentenced or retried. The following year the issue became legally moot as the New York State Legislature wrote Hamilton's argument into the state's libel law. Lot Amendments Condition: With some foxing and aging to the contents of all three works, but all very good. Item number: 274476