Beschreibung:

Property of a New York Collector
Huntington, SamuelAutograph speech signed ("S. Huntington") as governor of Connecticut, relating to education, liberty, and “Acts of Insolvency … Repugnant to the Constitution”
4 pages (323 x 213 mm) on a bifolium (watermarked seated Liberty | Floyd & Co.), [Hartford,] 11 October 1792, directed to "Gentlemen of the Council; Mr. Speaker, & Gentlemen of the House of Representatives," with a few autograph emendations; separated at central fold, other short fold separations, some light browning.
After mentioning his desire to make state taxes more "equitable & just if such can be devised, to reform the militia, and the need to fix roads," Governor Huntington emphasizing the importance of education as an essential element in the continued strength and vitality of republican institutions: "You will remember that no provision hath been made by Government for the encouragement and Support of Schools the present year. Perhaps it may be thought by some, that this Subject hath been too frequently reiterated from the Chair; But let me observe that it arises from the impression of a firm belief that it is Impossible for a free people to preserve their liberties & privileges with a regular & energetic Government, unless useful knowledge is generally diffused among them, & the principles of Virtue & religion included so as to obtain a governing influence upon the visible conduct & deportment of the inhabitants; and were these favors properly bestowed upon every rising generation … all Arbitrary & Despotic Government would vanish away."
Huntington served as a delegate to to both the Continental Congress and the Confederation Congress, signing the Declaration of Independence and serving a term as president. He left Congress with the intention of reestablishing his law practice, but the unstable political situation compelled him to return to public life. The present speech, essentially a state of the state address, was delivered in the middle of his ten-year tenure as governor of Connecticut, which ended with his death in 1796.
Huntington here refers to the "Salutary effects which have resulted from the Institution of New Gate Prison," the first state prison in the United States. A humanitarian movement resulted in significant reforms, including limitations on corporal and capital punishments in favor of attempts to improve criminals' character and behavior, which had already been instituted in Connecticut. Huntington urges the legislature to consider "whether it may not be wise to vest in the Superiour Court a descretionary power, to Commit to that prison certain offenders who may be convicted of crimes not mentioned in the Statutes, such as the willfull burning of Houses, & some other Attrotious offenses that may be mentioned." 
The governor also speaks at length about an epidemic of bankruptcies: "The applications for particular Acts of Insolvency seem to be encrasing, & as Congress have made no provision in such cases, is it not Expedient that the legislature of this State, should make some regulation relative to the Subject, in particular to prevent a preference of debts in favour of the first attaching Creditors of a bankrupt Estate. There exists also another difficulty respecting those particular Acts of Insolvency: they appear, prima facie, to be expost facto laws, and in that view may perhaps be called in question as being repugnant to the Constitution of the Nation & void; to the great disadvantage of honest Debtors who may have religiously conformed to such Acts."
In concluding his address, Huntington assures the legislators that he "Shall be happy in co-opperating with you to give all reasonable & proper dispatch, in the best manner, to the business that may come before us, during the Session."
PROVENANCE:Carnegie Book Shop, catalogue 99 (1953), no. 182 — Henry E. Luhrs (Heritage Auction Gallery, 20 February 2006, lot 25299)