RARE \"De Bow\'s Review,\" J. D. B. De Bow Clipped Signature For Sale

Up for sale a RARE!  "De Bow's Review," J. D. B. De Bow Clipped Signature. 

20, 1820 – February 27, 1867) was an American publisher and statistician, best known for his influential magazine De Bow's

Review, who also served as superindendant of the U.S. Census from 1853 to 1855.[1] He always spelled "De Bow" as two

words. J.D.B. De Bow was born on July 20, 1820 in Charleston, South Carolina,

the second son of Mary Bridget Norton and Garret De Bow. James' father, Garret,

was born in New York City, New York about 1775 to a Dutch-Huguenot father who

immigrated to the United States at an unknown date. His mother, Mary Bridget,

was born into an elite planter family from South Carolina. Her grandfather was

Capt. John Norton, an early settler on the Carolina Coast. Her father, William,

was a Revolutionary Soldier. A resident of New Orleans,

De Bow used his magazine to advocate the expansion of that the Southern economy could become

independent of the North. He warned

constantly of the South's "colonial"

relationship with the North, one in which the South was at a distinct

disadvantage. De Bow became nationally known for an editorial he penned about

the status of the territory obtained from the Mexican Cession of 1848. He claimed that the federal

Union could collapse once the North's number of representatives exceeded those

of the Southern states in the United

States House of Representatives. Moreover, one additional free state

at the time would have tipped the balance in the United States Senate to

the North, which had the large majority of the population. De Bow hence

proposed a legislative compromise to guarantee Southern rights in a

Northern-majority Union. U.S. Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky took up the cause and cemented together a

five-part Compromise of 1850, which

permitted the admission of California into the Union as a free state. However,

Southerners were given a concession: a stronger Fugitive

Slave Law, contrary to the Constitution. De Bow later

opposed the fugitive slave measure on the grounds that runaway slaves could

likely gain freedom in the North from sympathetic anti-slavery juries for

reasons including that slavery was unconstitutional and/or that no laws

authorized slavery (cf. jury nullification). On

January 2, 1861, De Bow joined fellow Fire-Eater Lieutenant Governor H.

M. Hyams at the Orleans Theatre in

urging immediate Southern secession from the Union. Some of the

speeches were delivered in French because of the Creole members of the

audience. Voters went to the polls five days later to choose delegates to a

state convention to consider secession. The secessionists prevailed by an

eight-to-five margin. Two days after that election, Louisiana proceeded to

seize the federal arsenal at Baton Rouge. Among

authors who contributed to De Bow's Review was the Southern

surgeon and medical writer Samuel A. Cartwright, who

was an authority on the establishment of sanitary conditions and also an

advocate of the pro-slavery argument.