"ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT WOMEN'S RIGHT TRACTS OF THE 19TH CENTURY": FIRST EDITION OF BOWDITCH'S TAXATION OF WOMEN IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1875, DECLARING WOMEN WERE "DENIED A FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTY THAT LAY AT THE HEART OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION"—TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION—A RARE COPY BOUND WITH THE 1882 EDITION OF BOWDITCH'S WOMAN SUFFRAGE A RIGHT, NOT A PRIVILEGE.

(WOMAN SUFFRAGE) BOWDITCH, William I. Taxation of Women in Massachusetts. BOUND WITH: Woman Suffrage A Right, Not a Privilege. Cambridge: John Wilson and Son, 1875, 1882. Octavo, contemporary brown stiff paper boards; pp (1-3) 4-71 (1); (3) 4-40. $3800.

First edition of a landmark analysis of the Massachusetts Constitution and taxation by Bowditch, who "knew how to make numbers tell a political story," indicting the "inexpressible meanness" of laws that allowed men to profit by taxes paid by women denied the right to vote, a distinctive copy bound with 1882 edition of his Woman Suffrage a Right, an exceptional copy in contemporary gilt-stamped stiff paper boards.

Taxation of Women in Massachusetts is "one of the most important women's rights tracts of the 19th century" (Cumbler, From Abolition to Rights, 113). Bowditch, a dedicated abolitionist who had been active in the Underground Railroad and a progressive experienced in the law and finance, was "a speaker at the first woman's rights convention ever held in Boston, in 1854. In 1870 he was named to the largely symbolic role of vice president of the newly founded Massachusetts Suffrage Association; in the 1880s he would serve as its president." His Taxation of Women was prompted by a Massachusetts House Report (#428), commissioned by the state's House of Representatives in 1871 and published in 1874. "Our fathers risked death rather than pay a tax of threepence a pound on tea," he writes. "We, their sons, have taxed the women of the land 25 cents for every pound of tea they consumed… men have it in their power to become voters if they please; but none of the women, who do more than six times as much as these men."

In his often searing analysis, Bowditch looks closely at how "working women were invisibly taxed by tariffs they could not see, by wages that were a fraction of those paid to men… he knew how to make numbers tell a political story" (Kerber, No Constitutional Right, 104-7). Arguing that "women without the right to vote can't give consent," he raises the connection between taxation and representation and observes that "women paid taxes but as taxpayers were unable to vote on the use of the money raised… denied a fundamental liberty that lay at the heart of the American Revolution" (Cumbler, 113). Declaring that men save over one-tenth of their own taxes by taxing women, he confesses: "being a man, I am ashamed to point out… the inexpressible meanness of the thing." This rare copy is bound with the 1882 edition of Bowditch's Woman Suffrage A Right, Not a Privilege. Here Bowditch makes a powerful call for women's suffrage as a natural right. His argument is elemental in the wider call for women's rights, pointing out the gap between legal rights as they have been granted by legislatures and natural rights. He both investigates hypocrisy in the law and its underpinnings and provides scholarly refutations of many of the arguments used to limit voting to men. Moreover, Bowditch successfully provides a templates by which women could be granted the right to vote. First edition, first printing of: Taxation of Women (1875): seven pages of tables at rear. Bound with 1882 edition of Women Suffrage, first issued in 1879: each complete with original title page, containing tiny utter-edge pinholes from original stitching. Gift bookplate of deaccessioned copy from Middlebury College: containing "withdrawn" inkstamps to bookplate, preliminary blank, and rear pastdown with trace of label removal. Gift bookplate printed in part: "Presented… by the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association. Julia Ward How, President. Lucy Stone, Chairman Ex. Committee."

Text very fresh, light edge-wear to preliminary blank, bright gilt-stamped boards, expert restoration to spine. An excellent near-fine copy of two seminal works rarely found together.