Title
Fugitive Justice : Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial / Steven Lubet.
ISBN
9780674059467
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2011]
Copyright
©2010
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (384 p.)
Other Standard Identifiers
10.4159/9780674059467 doi
Dewey Decimal Classification
342.7308/7
Summary
In this book, Steven Lubet examines, in detail, three trials on the great issue of fugitive slaves in the 1850's, the fugitive slave statutes, and how the legal system coped or failed to cope with the apparent inconsistencies between the Constitution supporting slavery and its purpose of guaranteeing certain rights to every man. The first case occurred in 1851 when a white Pennsylvania miller named Caster Hanway faced treason charges based on his participation in the Christiana slave riot. The second trial was of Anthony Burns in Boston, and the third case arose out of the 1858 capture of John Price by Kentucky slavehunters in the abolitionist stronghold of Oberlin, Ohio. The fugitive slave trials also provide modern readers with uncomfortable insights into the nature of slavery itself. With sincere conviction, many northern judges - including some who claimed to oppose slavery - calmly considered the quantum of evidence necessary to turn a human being into property. This book powerfully illuminates the tremendous bravery of the fugitives, the moral courage of their rescuers and lawyers, and, alas, the failure of American legal and political institutions to come to grips with slavery short of civil war.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Dez 2022)
Frontmatter
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Slavery and the Constitution
2. The Missouri Equilibrium
3. The Compromise of 1850
4. But We Have No Country
5. A Traitorous Combination
6. Prosecution at Independence Hall
7. Sir- Did You Hear It?
8. Athens of America
9. Kidnapping Again!
10. The Height of Cruelty
11. Judge Loring's Predicament
12. Freedom on the Western Reserve
13. The Son Betrays and the Father Indicts
14. Votaries of the Higher Law
15. An Irrepressible Conflict
Epilogue: Harpers Ferry and Beyond
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index
