The Character of the Gentleman: An Address to the Students of Miami University, on the Evening Before Commencement Day, in the Month of August, 1846
Cincinnati: J. A. James, 1846. First Edition. Leather and marbled boards. Octavo. 31 pages.
A glimpse into the moral imagination of one of America's great jurists as he turns his attention from the law to personal character in this address to the young men graduating from Ohio's Miami University in 1846. Lieber had immigrated to the United States from Prussia in 1827, and here, in true American fashion, rejects the idea of inherited privilege in favor of ethical conduct and civic responsibility, insisting that true gentlemanliness lies in candor, loyalty, and self-restraint.
Lieber was at this time a professor of political philosophy and economy at South Carolina College. He is perhaps best known for the "Lieber Code," which he drafted for Lincoln's War Department during the Civil War, creating the Union Army’s landmark rules of war and influencing international humanitarian law to this day.
Attractively bound copy of the scarce first edition of this Lieber address.
Marbled paper over boards with dark blue leather spine and fore corners, marbled endpapers, with top edge of textblock gilt. Spine titles in gilt. Rubs along joints and at extremities, short separation along bottom inner margin of front free endpaper, mild age toning to text pages. The 31 page pamphlet is bound with a like number of blank leaves at end to create space for the binding. Very good overall.
Item #1969
Price: $275