Young, Andrew W. The Principles of Civil Government familiarly illustrated; including a comprehensive View of the Government of the State of Vermont, and an Abstract of the Laws, showing the Rights, Duties, and Responsibilities of Citizens in the Civil and Domestic Relations; with an Outline of the Government of the United States : adapted to the capacities of Children and Youth, and Designed for the Use of Families and Schools. Syracuse, N. Y.: Stoddard & Babcock, 1848. First Edition. [11580]
Black leather spine with black cloth boards, edge-worn; 287 pages, light foxing, tight. Good. Hardcover.
The first edition of this format, with the Preface date of October, 1848. "Printed and stereotyped by Barns & Smith" on the copyright page.
"Notwithstanding the number and variety of class books that have sought and gained admittance into our public schools, the study of our civil polity has not yet been encumbered with treatises on this most important science...it is remarkable that the science of government has hitherto received so little attention." - Preface.
Andrew White Young (1802-1877), b. Carlisle, NY; d. Warsaw, NY. Young was a school teacher, a store clerk, and in 1830 began his career as an editor and journalist, publishing the Warsaw Sentinel. His success led him to purchase another regional news journal, and he was chosen to edit the American Citizen, the Genesee Anti-Slavery Society journal. He was a member of the New York Assembly and represented Wyoming County in the New York Constitutional Convention of 1846. Young became involved with the underground railroad and was a noted abolitionist. He wrote on American history and government, and his textbooks were widely used and went through many editions.
"Andrew W. Young, the most prolific writer in this field, having written six separate and distinct textbooks aggregating an enormous number of editions, wrote in his popular The Government Class Book (1859): 'To preserve and transmit the blessings of constitutional liberty, we need a healthy patriotism. It has been one of the objects of the writer to bring to view the excellencies of our system of government, and thus to lay, in the minds of youth, the basis of an enlightened patriotism.'" - Nietz, Old Textbooks (1961), p. 275.
