$12m Estimate for Washington's Acts of Congress Printing at Sotheby's

Sotheby's will run the second installment of its Reason and Revolution auction devoted to the founding of the United States in December following the auction earlier this month featuring landmark works of science.

The sale will be led by the copy of the first official printing of the Acts of Congress (New York, Francis Childs and John Swaine, Printers to the United States, 1789) that George Washington presented to John Jay in December 1789, estimated at $8m-$12m. 

Washington and Jay were, respectively, the first President of the United States and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the volume is the only one of five similarly bound copies to remain in private hands. Jay inscribed the title page that same day "9 Decr. 1789, Presented by the President of the United States to John Jay." 

He also wrote a note of thanks to Washington for the "elegant Edition of the Laws" which survives in the National Archives. The description suggests the handsome binding was part of the gift; the volume is bound in New York tree calf by Thomas Allen, with a gilt Greek-key border and a red morocco label on the front cover lettered "Chief Justice of the United States."
 
Washington commissioned similar Allen bindings for only a handful of copies of the Acts, those he gave to Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Richard Varick, and one for his own use. Those four are now at the Lilly Library at Indiana University, the Boston Athenaeum, Princeton University Library, and the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. Jay's is the only one of the five to remain in private hands.

The first official printed Acts of the United States Congress, it records the legislation of the First Congress which met in New York in 1789 and put the new government into operation. It opens with a full printing of the Constitution, including the roster of its signers and Washington's cover letter urging ratification. On pages 92-93 is a very early printing of the twelve amendments proposed by Congress, ten of which became the Bill of Rights.

The volume passed from Jay to collectors Estelle Doheny and Richard Manney, and has not appeared at auction in decades.

Also going under the hammer will be the first publication of the Constitution of the United States, printed two days after the Convention adjourned (The Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser, No. 2690 Philadelphia, Dunlap & Claypoole, September 19 1787). The entire issue is devoted to the document, with no editorial comment, and the Preamble is set in large type across the width of the first page. Washington's name appears three times on the last page. Only about thirty copies of this issue have been located, mostly in libraries and historical societies. It has an estimate of $600,000-$800,000.

Additionally, a first edition of The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay (New York, J. and A. M'Lean, 1788) will be included in the auction. It comes from the library of Nicholas Gilman, a signer of the Constitution from New Hampshire, whose signature appears on both title pages. Gilman read the text closely: in Essay No. 8 he changed Hamilton's word "insulated" to "insular." It is one of the very few copies that can be conclusively linked to a signer and has an estimate of $200,000-$300,000.

A preview exhibition of the lots will be held at Sotheby's New York running December 2-15 before the live auction on December 15.