Essays on Human Rights and Their Political Guaranties.
Hurlbut, E.P. Essays on Human Rights and Their Political Guaranties. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845. 219 pp. Fascimile reprint Fred B. Rothman/W.S. Hein, 1999. Publisher's cloth bound hardcover. Fine. $45. * This influential antebellum treatise, authored by Elisha Powell Hurlbut (1807-1889)-a prominent attorney and future New York Supreme Court Judge-serves as a forceful defense of natural law over utilitarian theory. Published in a landmark year for American letters that saw the debut of Frederick Douglass's Narrative and Poe's "The Raven," Hurlbut's work distinguished itself by its early and explicit advocacy for the legal equality of the sexes. His arguments notably impacted the burgeoning women's rights movement; Elizabeth Cady Stanton was deeply influenced by Hurlbut's theories on female enfranchisement and property rights, continuing to seek copies of this specific text as late as 1876. Across ten chapters, the work systematically addresses the origin of human rights, the true function of government, and the "Rights of Woman," where Hurlbut refutes the common law notion of marriage as a mere civil contract and defends a woman's right to property and total divorce.
Price: $45.00
Book number 27496