Hawthorne, Nathaniel; Lowell, J. R.; et al. The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. New Series, Volume VII. 1840. Washington DC: S. D. Langtree, 1840. First Edition. [9409]
Six issues bound, January-June, 1840. Full leather, outer hinges fine, 8 3/4 x 5 1/2 inches, spine dark with crazing & light surface loss, black leather title & volume no. labels in gilt. iv., 564 clean pp., tight, with 3 engravings. Good. Leather bound.
The engravings are of William Leggett, Richard Rush, Benjamin Tappan.
Contents include
William Leggett; Sappho, and the Female Poets of Greece; Organization of the House of Representatives; The Fiscal System of the United States; Louis Napoleon Bonaparte; Alas, Poor Henry Clay!: An Old Man's Counsel, by William Cullen Bryant; Currency Reform; Bacon's Rebellion; Mr. Van Buren's Title to Re-Election; A Few Free Thoughts on Free Trade; France - its King, Court, and Government; The Supreme Court of the United States; England and China; Benjamin Tappan, Senator from Ohio; Index.
The United States Magazine and Democratic Review was published from 1837 to 1859, it's motto "The best government is that which governs least" has been erroneously attributed to Thomas Jefferson. The ideals of Jefferson were promoted by the periodical, with its support of Jacksonian Democracy being built on that foundation. It was a counterpart to the North American Review, a Federalist/Whig periodical. It was outspoken in the topics of the Mexican War, slavery, states' rights, and Indian removal. It was in this periodical that the term "Manifest Destiny" was first used. It was edited by Jon L. O'Sullivan and Samuel D. Langtree. The volumes of this series are a brilliant presentation of literature and politics in the years before the American Civil War.
The Magazine promoted American writers, printing some of the earliest writings of such luminaries as Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, J. G. Whittier, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, H. W. Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell.