REPUBLIC OF TEXAS. Houston: Telegraph Power Press, 1840. 8vo., (7 ¾ x 5 ½ inches). Errata leaf (top of title page has been cut away; a bit browned throughout). Contemporary quarter black morocco, marbled paper boards, printed paper lettering piece on the spine (extremities a bit worn, “Library of New Jersey” blind-stamped to both covers).

Provenance: Ink library stamps of the State Library of New Jersey to title page and p. 3. Contemporary manuscript ownership inscription of N. Garland to verso of Errata leaf.

First edition. These laws were passed during the Fourth Congress of the Republic of Texas (1840), which had gained independence from Mexico in 1836. It encompassed all of modern-day Texas, as well as parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico. However, its southern and western boundary with Mexico was a matter of dispute during the entire ten years of the Republic’s existence. The disputed border would be a trigger during the Mexican-American War after the United States’ annexation of Texas in late 1845.

These laws provided for the “Repeal of Coahuilatecan marriage laws and adoption of English Common Law, protection of frontier, mail routes, suppression of gaming and dueling, prohibition of free persons of color emigrating to the Republic, running the western boundary, allowing sale of reserved Cherokee lands, various acts relating to the Texas Navy, act for surveyors to make maps of counties, establishment of land reserve for Alabama-Coushatta, survey of Austin town tract, incorporation of the City of Austin, marking boundary between Texas and the U.S., money for supporting Caddo, raising the ‘Fannin Guards’ Mounted Gunmen, etc.” (Dorothy Sloan). American Imprints (1840) 6502; Eberstadt, Texas 162:802; Sabin 9500n; Streeter 415, 416, 478.