JEFFERSON (Thomas). Mélanges politiques et philosophiques ex - Lot 37

JEFFERSON (Thomas). Mélanges politiques et philosophiques extracts from memoirs and correspondence. Paris, Paulin, 1833. 2 volumes in-8, (4 of which last blank)-468 + (4 of which last blank)-475-(3 of which first and last blank) pp, half-calf tobacco with corners, smooth spines decorated with gilt and cold-stamped fillets and a gilt frieze at the tail, with brown title-pieces and greembooks; headbands rubbed, one with a tear, spinebands a little rubbed, corners worn, some freckling, stains in the upper margins of the first volume (contemporary binding). FIRST EDITION OF THE FRENCH TRANSLATION by Louis-Prosper Conseil, of this collection originally published in English in 1829 under the title Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies. The Marquis de La Fayette expressed his desire to see the work translated into French to the republican publicist Charles-Arnold Scheffer, who recommended Louis-Prosper Conseil, a jurist, economist and republican publicist well-versed in English-language philosophy. "LE DOCUMENT LE PLUS PRECIEUX QU'ON A PUBLIÉ EN FRANCE SUR L'HISTOIRE ET LA LEGISLATION DES ÉTATS-UNIS" (ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, DE LA DEMOCRATIE EN AMERIQUE, VOL. I, 1835). Excerpts from Thomas Jefferson's memoirs shed light on his early political career, his participation in the drafting of the United States Declaration of Independence, his policies as Governor of Virginia (1779-1781) and his embassy to France (1785-1789). Selected letters from 1775 to 1826, notably addressed to George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, represent a major source on the history of the young United States, and are considered one of the masterpieces of political science. Also included are the instructions Thomas Jefferson wrote to Virginia's deputies in Congress, and his critical opinion on the creation of a national bank. Alexis de Tocqueville's laudatory appraisal of the work concerns not only Thomas Jefferson's writings, but also the personal text attached to them by Louis-Prosper Conseil, entitled "Essai sur les mémoires et la correspondance de Jefferson, considérés comme l'expression la plus complète et la plus pure des principes de l'école américaine". In this essay, which John Stuart Mill regarded as a statement of the "principles of enlightened republicanism", Conseil presents American democracy as an example to be set against the detractors of this type of regime, who point to the excesses of the terrorist Republic. However, he sees a danger of fragmentation in American federalism, which preserves the legislative power of each state in the Union, and criticizes the bicameral system, seeing the Senate as an instrument of aristocratic influence. ALSO INCLUDES THE FRENCH TRANSLATION OF THE CONSTITUTION FEDERALE DES ÉTATS-UNIS (1787).