Maine Statehood Movement Document.

Maine Statehood Movement Document.
[MAINE-STATEHOOD MOVEMENT]. An Address to the People of Maine, on the Question of Separation. By the Convention of Delegates, Assembled at Brunswick, August 1, 1816. "Is it expedient that the District of Maine shall be separated from Massachusetts, and become an independent state, upon the terms and conditions provided in an act entitled "An act concerning the separation of the District of Maine from Massachusetts proper, and forming the same into a separate and independent state"?; Published by order of the Convention. [Brunswick, Maine: N.p. 1816].

8vo, self wrappers. 24 pp. ·

The official report of the anti-separationist convention held in Brunswick in August of 1816. "Never in the long history of the separation movement was interest among the citizens of the District higher than in the summer of 1816. Separationists appreciated the importance of the eight-week interlude between the end of June and the September 2nd election. There was, they realized, a limit to the number of opportunities to achieve their objective that they could reasonably expect ... Similarly, the opponents of separation realized that failure to stop the separationists now would mean the end."-Banks. The Brunswick convention was the most important of several antiseparationist meetings held that summer. Federalist opposition to separation was sufficiently aroused to defeat the separation measure on the September ballot. However, the efforts of the opposition proved a finger in the dike when Maine became a state four years later. Banks, Ronald F. Maine Becomes a State, pp. 91-115. Shaw & Shoemaker 38135; Williamson 5423; Noyes 745. Good, some creases and light foxing.