Somerset v. Stuart: Implications for British North America?

Somerset v. Stuart is probably the most important case ever heard in English common law. I won't bore you with the details, but it involved an African slave named James Somerset who demanded to be freed from his master, Charles Stuart, a Virginia planter. In 1772, he was transferred to England, and there demanded his rights as an free Englishman. Anyway the Court of King's Bench (the supreme court at the time) under Lord Mansfield had this to say:

"...The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it's so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged."

Was this one of the reasons for Southern support for the American Rebellion? Did the South fear that, should they lose, that Somerset v. Stuart would be enforced in the colonies?
 
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To my knowledge, that case didn't affect attitudes concerning Revolution in the colonies at the time.

For one, the case wouldn't have had any implication in the colonies since in 1772 all had positive law which supported slavery, as did British colonies in the West Indies.

It would conflict with the mindset of latter Southerners about the ability to extend slavery westwards, but colonial Virginian planters of the 1770s would have aggreed about the odium of the institution.

Now, what might be interesting is if you could use it to affect the Dred Scot decision. The Bill of Rights does recognize common law and English and British precedents are still used in US courts to argue aspects of comon law. But even if you could, the Constitution's Article IV would still be the paramount issue: is a slave in a free state still a slave.
 
Slavery was on the decline before and after the American Revolution, because it was increasingly uneconomical, plus it didn't really appear (especially to Americans who had just overthrow British rule) to jive with the American commitment to liberty. The invention of the cotton gin make cotton "king" and made slavery into the economic juggernaut that caused the civil war.

If you can get one of the resolutions to outlaw slavery in the West passed, and limit slavery only to where it already existed, then I think that you will be able to end slavery. The cotton gin allowed cotton to become king, and if slavery was illegal in the places where cotton could be best grown (across the now slavery free Deep South- Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Texas) then the growers would develop a different economic system. This would probably prominently include free blacks, and the racism and inequality in the South would continue, but with this much changed legacy of slavery, the course of American history has been radically altered.
 
To my knowledge, that case didn't affect attitudes concerning Revolution in the colonies at the time.

There is a school of thought that the Somerset Case had rather more of a role than is generally thought in triggering the War of Independence especially in its effects on the Southern Colonies. To quote Simon Schama "Theirs was a revolution, first and foremost, mobilised to protect slavery".

The early 1770s were a period of slave unrest in Virginia, prompting the city of Williamsburg to establish a night watch in July 1772 to apprehend "disorderly People, Slaves as well as others." Slave restiveness increased when news of the Somersett case reached the colonies in September 1772. James Somersett, a slave taken to England by his master Charles Steuart, had run away. Recaptured and in chains in the hull of a ship bound for Jamaica, he sued for his freedom. In June 1772, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, held that slavery "is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law." As "the law of England" neither "allowed" nor "approved" of slavery, Mansfield ruled that "the black must be discharged."

Mansfield's decision outlawed slavery only in England; it did not apply to British colonies. But that was immaterial to American slaves. In January 1773, the General Court in Boston received the first of three petitions in which slaves pleaded their freedom with the argument that Mansfield's decision should indeed apply to the colonies, where they were "held in a state of Slavery within a free and christian Country."

By September 1773, the first of Virginia's 250,000 slaves were also trying to get "out of the Colony, particularly to Britain" - so noted John Austin Finnie's advertisement for runaways Bacchus and Amy - "where they imagine they will be free." The king was on their side - or so slaves thought - and against their masters, who feared a British-instigated slave revolt. Following the discovery in November 1774 of slaves conspiring to desert "when the English troops should arrive," James Madison wrote to William Bradford of his conviction that "If america & Britain come to an hostile rupture I am afraid an Insurrection among the slaves may & will be promoted" in an attempt to preserve Virginia for the crown of King George III.

When tensions between Dunmore and Virginia's ruling elite increased in early 1775, the ground was well prepared for his lordship to "arm all my own Negroes and receive all others that will come to me who I shall declare free," as he wrote to Dartmouth on March 1. Dunmore could argue that since the colonists were clamoring for English law, they could get a taste of it, Somersett and all. The slaves, on the other hand, considered the government in London and its local representatives to be sympathetic to their cause, and they were only waiting for the sign to take up arms to "reduce the refractory people of this Colony to obedience."

Armed conflict was looming, and Dunmore ordered Royal Marines to seize the gunpowder stored in the Williamsburg Magazine during the night of April 20-21. When Virginia threatened to erupt in open violence, Dunmore backed down. Forced to pay restitution for the powder, Dunmore lost his temper in front of the town leaders. Williamsburg resident Dr. William Pasteur heard the governor say that he would "declare freedom to the slaves and reduce the City of Williamsburg to ashes." He boasted he would have "all the slaves on the side of the government". By mid-May, rumors of Dunmore's plans had spread all the way to Boston, from where General Thomas Gage, Governor of Massachusetts, informed Dartmouth: "We hear that a Declaration his Lordship has made, of proclaiming all the Negroes free, who should join him, has Startled the Insurgents."

Gage was jumping the gun but not by much. On June 8, Dunmore fled Williamsburg for the safety of the man-of-war Fowey at Yorktown. The Virginia Convention quickly assured the governor of his own personal safety but expressed its extreme displeasure of this "most diabolical" scheme "meditated, and generally recommended, by a Person of great Influence, to offer Freedom to our slaves, and turn them against their Masters." But Dunmore felt that he had no alternative. His ranks reduced to some 300 soldiers, sailors, and loyalists, he let it be known that he welcomed supporters of any skin color. As word spread along the coast, about 100 black runaways reached Dunmore's fleet during the fall of 1775. In early November his troops routed a corps of Virginia militia at Kemp's Landing. That was the signal for the publication of Dunmore's long-anticipated proclamation to American slaves.

Dated November 7, it declared "all indented Servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining his MAJESTY'S Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to his MAJESTY'S Crown and Dignity". This was not a general emancipation of slaves and indentured servants. Dunmore invited only those slaves to his banner who were owned by rebels, and of those, only males could bear arms.

The response was overwhelming. By December 1, about 300 runaways were carrying muskets and wearing the garb of Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, the words "Liberty to Slaves" emblazoned on their chests.

http://www.americanrevolution.org/blk.html


I've always thought it pretty funny that Patrick Henry said "Give me Liberty or give me Death" but also said of Lord Dunmores Ethiopian Regiment (who as mentioned above wore the slogan "Liberty to Slaves" on their uniforms) that they were "fatal to the publick safety".

Here's a piece of related trivia, the line in the Declaration of Independence where it says "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us" relates to this freeing of slaves to fight for the Crown.



You might want to read these books for some more background:

Slave Nation: How Slavery United the Colonies and Sparked the American Revolution - Alfred W. Blumrosen 2005

Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution - Simon Schama 2005
 
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