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Excerpt from Argument of Robert J. Walker, Esq.: Before the Supreme Court of the United States, on the Mississippi Slave Question, at January Term, 1841, Involving the Power of Congress and of the States to Prohibit the Inter-State Slave Trade Mr. Walker said, he appeared only for Moses Groves, of Louisiana, whose defence was meritorious as well as legal. He was a mere accommodation endorser, who had been made a party to this illegal contract, without his knowledge or consent, through an endorsement in blank for the accommodation of the drawer of the note. This is evident from the record; but as the question resolved itself into a decision upon the validity of the contract, the following agreement was filed in the case below. "The case is to be defended solely on the question of the validity and legality of the consideration for which the notes sued on were given. It is admitted that the slaves, for which said notes were given, were imported into Mississippi as merchandise, and for sale, in the year 1835, 1836, by plaintiff, but without any previous agreement or understanding, express or implied, between plaintiff and any of the parties to the note; but for sale, generally, to any person who might wish to purchase. The slaves have never been returned to plaintiff, nor tendered to him by any of the parties to the notes sued on." It must be observed, that it is not alleged or pretended that my client, Moses Groves, ever had the possession or control of any of these slaves, or that it ever was in his power to tender or return them. The notes sued on were dated December 20, 1836, and were given and made payable in Mississippi; and the validity of the contract depends upon the following clause in the amended constitution of Mississippi, adopted October 26, 1832. That clause is in these words - "The introduction of slaves into this state as merchandise, or for sale, shall be prohibited from and after the first day of May, 1833: Provided, That the actual settler or settlers shall not be prohibited from purchasing slaves in any State of this Union, and bringing them into this State for their own individual use, till the year 1845. The question arises only on the first branch of this clause; which, it is said, is but a mandate to the legislature to prohibit the introduction of slaves for sale from and after the 1st of May, 1833. But the clause is not directed to the legislature, and is not a mandate in substance or in Form, but an absolute prohibition, operating proprio vigore. It requires no legislation to give it efficacy to avoid this contract; and none such could prevent or postpone its operation. To declare it a mandate, is to interpolate into this provision words of solemn import. No court can introduce into a law, or exclude from it, words not used by the legislature; unless it be clearly necessary to give effect to the law, ut res magis valeat quam pereat. Now the clause - "The introduction of slaves into this state as merchandise, or for sale, shall be prohibited from and after the first day of May, eighteen hundred and thirty-three," is complete of itself, as a prohibition, operating by force of the constitution itself, from and after the day designated by that instrument; and to change it into a mandate, the words "by the legislature" must be interpolated. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Winner, Joseph A. Andrews Award from the American Association of Law Libraries, 1986. Provides a detailed discussion and analysis of the pamphlet materials on the law of slavery published in the United States and Great Britain.

During America's turbulent antebellum era, the Supreme Court decided important cases—most famously Dred Scott—that spoke to sectional concerns and shaped the nation's response to the slavery question. Much scholarship has been devoted to individual cases and to the Taney Court, but this is the first comprehensive examination of the major slavery cases that came before the Court between 1825 and 1861. Earl Maltz presents a detailed analysis of all eight cases and explains how each fit into the slavery politics of its time, beginning with The Antelope, heard by the John Marshall Court, and continuing with the seven other cases taken before the Roger Taney Court: The Amistad, Groves v. Slaughter, Prigg v. Pennsylvania, Strader v. Graham, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Ableman v. Booth, and Kentucky v. Denison. Case by case, Maltz identifies the political and legal forces that shaped each of the judicial outcomes while clarifying the evolution of the Court's slavery-related jurisprudence. He reveals the beliefs of each justice about the morality of slavery and the judicial role in constitutional cases to show how their actions were determined by a complex interaction of political and doctrinal considerations. Thus he offers a more nuanced understanding of the antebellum federal judiciary, showing how the decision in Prigg hinged on views about federalism as well as attitudes toward human freedom, while the question of which slaves were freed in The Antelope depended more on complex fact-finding than on a condemnation of the slave trade. Maltz also challenges the view that the Taney Court simply mirrored Southern interests and argues that, despite Dred Scott, the overall record of the Court was not particularly proslavery. Although the progression of the Court's decisions reflects a change in the tenor of the conflict over slavery, the aftermath of those decisions illustrates the limits of the Court's ability to change the dynamic that governed political struggles over such divisive issues. As the first accessible account of all of these cases, Slavery and the Supreme Court, 1825–1861 underscores the Court's limited capability to resolve the intractable political conflicts that sharply divided our nation during this period.

Southern Slaves in Free State Courts: The Pamphlet Literature. New York: Garland, 1988. 3 Vols. 1,704 pp. With a New Introduction by Paul Finkelman. Reprinted 2007, 2013 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. Set ISBN-13: 9781584777380. Set ISBN-10:1584777389. Hardcover. New. 34 Pamphlets reprinted in fascimile, in 3 volumes, with a New Introduction by Paul Finkelman: 1. Francis Hargrave. An Argument in the Case of James Sommersett aNegro, Lately Determined by the Court of King's Bench: Wherein it is Attempted to Demonstrate the Present Unlawfulness of Domestic Slavery in England. To Which is Prefixed a State of the Case. London, 1772. 82pp. 2. Edward Long. Candid Reflections Upon the Judgement Lately Awarded by the Court of King's Bench, in Westminster-Hall, on What is Commonly Called the Negro Cause, by a Planter. London, 1772. 76 pp. 3. Britannia Libera, or a Defence of the Free State of Man in England, Against the Claim of Any Man There as a Slave. London, 1772. 47 pp. 4. Samuel Estwick. Considerations on the Negro Cause Commonly so Called, Addressed to the Right Honorable Lord Mansfield. London, 1763. [96] pp. 5. A Letter to Philo Africanus, Upon Slavery; In Answer to His of the 22nd of November, in the General Evening Post, Together With the Opinions of Sir John Strange, and Other Eminent Lawyers Upon This Subject, With the Sentence of Lord Mansfield, in the Case of Somerset and Knowles, 1772, With His Lordship's Explanation of That Opinion in 1786. London, 1788. 40 pp. 6. John Haggard. The Judgment of the Right Hon. Lord Stowell, Respecting the Slavery of the Mongrel Woman, Grace, On An Appeal From The Vice-Admirality Court of Antigua. London, 1827. [50] pp. 7. Considerations on Certain Remarks on the Negro Slavery and Abolition Questions, in Lord Stowell's Judgment in the Case of the Slave "Grace." By a Briton. Newcastle, 1827. 18 pp. 8. Case of the Slave-Child Med. Report of the Arguments of Counsel and of the Opinion of the Court, in the Case of Commonwealth vs. Aves;Tried and Determined in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Boston, 1836. 40 pp. Please contact us for a complete list of titles contained in these three volumes. Originally published as a part of the series Slavery, Race, and the American Legal System, 1700-1872, this set contains facsimiles of 34 rare pamphlets relating to court cases involving the status of slaves in non-slave jurisdictions, including Somerset v. Stewart (1772) and Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). As in the companion set Fugitive Slaves and American Courts, some pamphlets were part of the public debate over judicial decisions. Others used a case to promote the antislavery cause or, in some instances, support or justify slavery.

Born in Warsaw, raised in a Hasidic community, and reaching maturity in secular Jewish Vilna and cosmopolitan Berlin, Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) escaped Nazism and immigrated to the United States in 1940. This lively and readable book tells the comprehensive story of his life and work in America, his politics and personality, and how he came to influence not only Jewish debate but also wider religious and cultural debates in the postwar decades. A worthy sequel to his widely-praised biography of Heschel's early years, Edward Kaplan's new volume draws on previously unseen archives, FBI files, interviews with people who knew Heschel, and analyses of his extensive writings. Kaplan explores Heschel's shy and private side, his spiritual radicalism, and his vehement defence of the Hebrew prophets' ideal of absolute integrity and truth in ethical and political life. Of special interest are Heschel's interfaith activities, including a secret meeting with Pope Paul VI during Vatican II, his commitment to civil rights with Martin Luther King, Jr., his views on the state of Israel, and his opposition to the Vietnam War. A tireless challenger to spiritual and religious complacency, Heschel stands as a dramatically important witness.

"Immigration presented a constitutional and political problem in the nineteenth-century United States. Until the 1870s, the federal government played only a very limited role in regulating immigration. The states controlled mobility within and across their borders and set their own rules for community membership. This book demonstrates how the existence, abolition, and legacies of slavery shaped immigration policy as it moved from the local to the national level. Throughout the antebellum era, defenders of slavery feared that if Congress had power to control immigration, it could also regulate the movement of free black people and perhaps even the interstate slave trade. The Civil War removed the political and constitutional obstacles to a national immigration policy. Admission remained the norm for European immigrants until the 1920s, but Chinese immigrants fell into a different category. Starting in the 1870s, the federal government excluded Chinese laborers, deploying techniques of registration, punishment, and deportation first used against free black people in the antebellum South. To justify these measures, the Supreme Court ruled that authority over immigration was inherent in national sovereignty and required no constitutional justification. The federal government continues to control admissions and exclusions today, while the states play a double-edged role in regulating immigrants' lives, depending on their politics and location. Some monitor and punish immigrants; others offer sanctuary and refuse to act as agents of federal law enforcement. By examining the history of immigration in a slaveholding republic, this book reveals the tangled origins of border control, incarceration, deportation, and ongoing tensions between local and federal authority in the United States"--