LAWRENCE (William Beach). French Industry and Negro Slavery in the United States. Letter to the editor of the Journal des débats. Paris: E. Dentu, 1860. - In-8, 220x137: 16 pp. printed cover. Red half-maroquin, double gilt fillet, ornate ribbed spine, gilt head, untrimmed, cover preserved (A. Durand). First edition of this occasional pamphlet by the American jurist and staunch defender of slavery, William Beach Lawrence (1800-1881). He wrote to the editor of the Journal des Débats, in response to an article he considered insulting to his country, concerning the attack on Harper's Ferry in Virginia in October 1859, led by abolitionist John Brown. According to Lawrence: "This attack [...] was a conspiracy of fanatical abolitionists of the North, who had not even any racial connection with negroes, and whose object was to instigate a servile war against their countrymen and brethren of the South, a servile war the success of which, independently of other and infinitely more regrettable results, could only have resulted in the annihilation of the agricultural industry of our slave States, and especially of the cultivation of cotton" (pp. 3-4). The author's warning is dated April 30, 1860, one year before the start of the American Civil War, which began on April 12, 1861. Precious copy enriched at the head with a proof copy of the booklet, with a few handwritten corrections, notably in the warning. Also bound at the end is the English edition of the pamphlet, with its cover preserved.