Description

Memoirs of the Rev. Ammi Rogers, A.M. A Clergyman of the Episcopal Church, Educated at Yale College in Connecticut, Ordained in Trinity Church in the City of New York,—Persecuted in the State of Connecticut, on Account of Religion and Politics, for Almost Twenty Years; And Finally, Falsely Accused and imprisoned in Norwich Jail, for Two Years on the Charge of Crimes Said to Have Been Committed in the Town of Griswold, in the County of New London, When He Was Not Within About One Hundred Miles of the Place, and Of Which He Was Absolutely as Innocent as the Judge Who Pronounced the Sentence, or As Any Other Person in the World. Composed, Compiled, and Written by the Said Ammi Rogers. Second Edition. Printed in Schenectady, NY by G. Ritchie, Jr. 1826, 272 pp, 6.5 x 4.5", 1/2 leather binding. Sold as-is with font board detached. Significant rubbing and chipping to edges of boards and spine. Spine surface perished. Text block in 5 parts, but complete. Ex-library with bookplate from the Presbyterian Historical Society Library. Title page disbound. Page edges worn; page 271 (subscriber's list) torn without loss. General age-related toning and some staining to pages, but text is clean and legible. Please see photographs and ask any questions prior to purchasing. A scarce volume, comprising the autobiography and refutation of Rev. Ammi Rogers (1770-1852). Rogers was an Episcopal Minister who was, as he tells it, met with years of persecution at the hands of his fellow clergymen over his unpopular religious and political views (in 1801, Rogers had publicly called for the complete separation of church and state). In 1820, this retaliatory behavior culminated in Rogers being accused of impregnating an unwed teenage girl, Asenath C. Smith, then terminating the pregnancy. The ensuing trial and guilty verdic paved the way for the first anti-abortion law in the United States. In Roger's retelling of the events, his conviction was entirely unjust, as supported by Asenath Smith's recanting of her testimony after his release from prison. Vindicated in the eyes of the public, he penned several editions of this tell-all memoir. “It was the titillating trial and salacious scandal of 1820s Connecticut that has ramifications that resonate today. A love affair between an older magnetic preacher and a young woman that led to pregnancy, botched attempts to end it and then a stillbirth – all amid a broken promise to marry. The state wanted to throw the book at Ammi Rogers, a controversial reverend, but there were no laws banning abortion in 1820. Rogers, who spent the rest of his life proclaiming his innocence, was instead convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to two years in prison. He impregnated 21-year-old Asenath Smith, the granddaughter of one of his congregants. When she fell pregnant, he first gave her a medicine to end the baby's life but when that did not work, used a 'tool' to end the pregnancy. Smith's family ended up calling a doctor because she was in extreme pain. She delivered a still born not long afterwards. The furor over the court case pushed Connecticut to pass the nation's first abortion law the next year, in 1821. Other states followed suit and by the end of the 19th Century, 49 states had some type of law regulating abortion, with Kentucky passing legislation in 1910. A through line can be drawn from that court case and subsequent legislation in 1821 to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade to the signing Wednesday of one of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws in Alabama. While the two laws are separated by nearly 200 years, their aim is the same: punish those that provide women with abortions. In the 1820s, a women, like Asenath Smith, Rogers' lover, would have been given some sort of medicine to get rid of the pregnancy. Now, those who provide abortions could be sentenced anywhere from 10 years up to 99 years when the Alabama law takes effect.” ORN-ABE-MSB-0522-Shelf-587-am301