This volume deals with a man whose life was intimately connected with a most significant formative period in American civilization. Son of the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Rush, Richard Rush was not such a dynamic personality, but in his earnest, gracious way he left almost as deep an imprint on many phases of national life.

Educated as a lawyer, his first public: post was Attorney-General of Pennsylvania. This was followed in 1811 by appointment as Comptroller of the United States Treasury, and in 1814 as Attorney-General of the United States. He was Secretary of State in 1817,...

United States Government publications are books collectors have not sought, bibliographers have not analyzed, historians have rarely considered. But publication is a necessary part of law-making and law-enforcing, and as the historian J. H. Powell traces national printing through its first forty years (until the British fired the capital in 1814) these dry-as-dust public documents become vivid, exciting elements in the lively story of how a new nation was built.

In this volume collectors will find many "firsts" in public documents, bibliographers will discover unknown chapters in the...