8vo (216 x 140 mm). (A few pages loose, light toning to margins.) Disbound.

FIRST EDITION. In 1854, Abraham Lincoln was named one of two commissioners assigned to take testimony on claims connected with the Illinois & Michigan Canal—a vital link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River that had helped make Illinois a commercial crossroads of the Midwest. Though celebrated as a feat of engineering and a boon to trade, the canal was mired in debt and entangled in disputes over unpaid contracts, contested land valuations, and lingering claims from contractors. Lincoln’s task was to examine each case on its legal merits, weighing the state’s financial obligations against the equitable treatment of individual petitioners. The assignment suited his long-standing commitment to “internal improvements”—transportation projects such as canals, roads, and railroads, which he had championed since his early years in the Illinois legislature. RARE: The last copy we could trace at auction was in 1929 (American Art Association).

REFERENCE:
Monaghan 8