James Madison, President of the U—States——
"St. Stephens (M.T.)
Printed by Tho. Eastin. 1815."
Joseph Pulaski Kennedy wrote this pamphlet after an election in which he ran unsuccessfully against William Crawford of Alabama to represent Jackson County in the Territorial legislature.[65] His stated purpose is to refute "malicious falsehoods ... industriously circulated" against him before the election, foremost among them the charge that but for him Mobile Point "would never have been retaken"; and he summarizes his actions as an officer "in the command of the Choctaws of the United States" during the dangerous final stage of the War of 1812 when the town of Mobile nearly fell into British hands.
The only recorded copy of this little-known pamphlet is inscribed to "James Madison President of the U States." It owes its preservation to its inclusion among the Madison Papers in possession of the Library of Congress.[66]
[62] Copies of both imprints are described under nos. 1548 and 1549 in The Celebrated Collection of Americana Formed by the Late Thomas Winthrop Streeter (New York, 1966-69), vol. 3. The Declaration was reprinted in The Magazine of History, with Notes and Queries, extra no. 8 (1925), p. [45]-55.
[63] See Douglas C. McMurtrie, A Brief History of the First Printing in the State of Alabama (Birmingham, 1931), p. 6.
[64] No. 4 in Historical Records Survey. American Imprints Inventory, no. 8, Check List of Alabama Imprints, 1807-1840 (Birmingham, 1939); no. 3 in the section, "Books, Pamphlets, etc." in R. C. Ellison, A Check List of Alabama Imprints 1807-1870 (University, Ala., 1946).
[65] See Cyril E. Cain, Four Centuries on the Pascagoula ([State College? Miss., 1953-62]), vol. 2, p. 8-9 (naming Crawford only).
[66] It is in vol. 78, leaf 22. This volume, containing printed material only, is in the Rare Book Division.