UNITED STATES VS. WILLIAM SMITH. PIRACY ; Speech of

Philadelphia: King and Baird, 1862. First Edition. 8vo, pp. 13. bent printed wraps. Sabin 37272. LCP 5502. Very good. Smith purportedly sailing as a crew member under the flag of France, had hijacked the American schooner Enchantress and seized one of its crew, a Negro, to sell into slavery in Charleston. Smith's ship was in fact the Confederate vessel 'Jeff. Davis,' and Smith's defense was that the alleged crime occurred as an act of War, not piracy, under the authority of the Confederate government. Item #49929

William D. Kelley (1814 - 1890) was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Kelley was a lifelong advocate of civil rights, social reform, and labor protection. He was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia in 1841. In 1846 Governor Shunk of Pennsylvania appointed him a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He served as a judge of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas from 1846-1856. He came to national attention after his 1854 speech against the slave trade, "Slavery in the Territories", was published and widely read. After the repeal of the Missouri Compromise by the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Kelley quit the Democratic Party. In 1854 Kelley was one of the founders of the Republican Party. Kelley was elected as a Republican to Congress in 1860 and served from March 4, 1861, until his death in Washington, D.C.. He spoke often on the justice and necessity of "impartial suffrage", or voting rights for African-Americans, introduced a bill (which passed into law) in the 39th United States Congress which gave the right to vote to African-Americans in the District of Columbia, and spoke in favor of impeaching President Johnson, who had vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Freemen's Bureau Bill .
Congressman Kelley prosecutes a wartime piracy case against Smith who, purportedly sailing as a crew member under the flag of France, had hijacked the American schooner Enchantress and seized one of its crew, a Negro, to sell into slavery in Charleston. Smith's ship was in fact the Confederate vessel 'Jeff. Davis,' and Smith's defense was that the alleged crime occurred as an act of War, not piracy, under the authority of the Confederate government.

Price: $250.00 save 20% $200.00