When runaway slave Anthony Burns was tracked to Boston by his owner
Charles Suttle, the struggle over his fate became a focal point for
national controversy. Boston, a hotbed of antislavery sentiment,
provided the venue for the 1854 hearing that determined Burns's
legal status, one of the most dramatic and widely publicized events
in the long-running conflict over the issue of fugitive slaves.
Earl Maltz's compelling chronicle of this case shows how the
violent emotions surrounding it played out at both the local and
national levels, focusing especially on the awkward position in
which trial judge Edward Loring found himself. A unionist who also
supported enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, Loring was
committed to the idea that each individual case should be decided
by reference to neutral principles, which ultimately led him to
remand Burns to Suttle's custody. Although, as Maltz argues,
Loring's decision was indisputably correct on the facts and
justified by existing legal precedent, it also ignited a firestorm
of protest.
Maltz locates the Burns case in arguments over slavery going
back to the Constitution's rendition clause, then follows it
through two iterations of federal statutes in 1793 and 1850, a
miniature legal war between the governors of Massachusetts and
Virginia, and abolitionists' violent resistance to federal law. He
also cites Loring's intellectual honesty and determination to apply
the law as written, no matter what it might cost him.
As the last of a series of high-profile disputes in
Massachusetts, the Burns case underscores the abolitionist attitude
of many of the state's residents toward the fugitive slave issue,
providing readers with a you-are-there view of an actual fugitive
slave case hearing and encouraging them to grapple with the
question of how a conscientious judge committed to the rule of law
should act in such a case. It also sheds light on the political
costs and consequences for any judicial official attempting to
deliver a decision on such a controversial issue while surrounded
by a hostile public.
A story as dramatic and compelling as any in our legal annals,
"Fugitive Slave on Trial" dissects an important historical event as
it sheds new light on the state of the Union in the mid-1850s and
the events that led to its eventual dismemberment.
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