TUCKER, George.

£3,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Essays on Various Subjects of Taste, Morals, and National Policy. First edition in book form of these 15 studies of American education, finance, and civil society. This last focus attracted the attention of both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who appointed Tucker professor of political economy and moral philosophy at the newly formed University of Virginia.George Tucker (1775-1861) served in the House of Representatives for Virginia from 1819 to 1825, after which he held the moral philosophy professorship until 1845. During that time, he wrote A Voyage to the Moon (1827), among the earliest American science fiction novels - it is therefore interesting to note that the present volume includes an essay "On Scientific Pursuits". Madison judged the Essays "among the best answers to the charges of our national... backwardness" (quoted in McLean, p. 25). Many of the essays were first published in 1814-15 in the Port Folio.

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