A Dark Cause for Our Nation’s Liberty
This really bites.
I’ve always been a sucker for our Revolutionary Heritage. I absolutely love the musical 1776, even though I know it’s not completely accurate, and I always tear up at the finale when the Declaration of Independence is signed to the toll of the Liberty Bell. And I would wonder how a man like Thomas Jefferson could be so enslaved to his own economic well-being that he would betray that shining principal that all men are created equal.
Well, I’ve just come across something that never got included in the high school history books, something that explains why so many of the colonists, most particularly the southern ones, were so eager to sign on to the noble cause: Somerset v. Stewart.
This was a case decided in England in 1772, four years before the Declaration of Independence was signed, which must have worried every colonist whose income was based on unpaid labor. This involved a runaway slave, James Somerset, who was recaptured and to be transported out of England to Jamaica, to be sold for plantation labor. Somerset, with the help of abolitionists, sued his owner, Charles Stewart, on the grounds that neither the common law of England nor any act of Parliament recognized the existence of slavery.
The judge agreed, Somerset was freed, and the precedence was set for more freedom suits, including some in Massachusetts. While it did not outlaw slavery in Great Britain, it was seen as the first step to an abolition movement that threatened to cross the ocean. And indeed, when it came to outlawing this despicable practice, the “tyrannical” English beat us to the punch by over 30 years. Good for them.
And shame on us if our fight for freedom was partially fueled by the determination to deny it to an entire race.
* * *
My novel deals with this topic also. You’ll meet Jess Riordan and Rev. Wilson, both fiery abolitionists; Jeremy Hardwicke, son of a slave-trader being dragged to the other side by the magnetism of Jess’s beautiful eyes; and Aaron Collins, who agrees with them on principal but is too war-weary to fight over it, not with his neighbors and certainly not with weapons. And then there’s Bob Ryder, the ex-slave who fought at Aaron’s side in the Revolutionary War. Here’s how he explains Aaron, who is about to get roped into helping a runaway slave:
“He gotta live with ‘is neighbors, live with ’em ‘n’ do business with ’em, some like Widda Craig who don’ look at us the same way he does. An’ there’s the cons’ble, he had ta make ‘is peace with ‘im. I think ‘e promised ta stay on the right side o’ the law, even it if meant being on the wrong side o’ God.”
“Selling his soul,” Jeremy said softly as the man drew nearer. And then with alarm, “He wouldn’t turn Marissa in, would he?”
“No,” Bob said with certainty. “He couldn’ look us in the face ‘n’ do that. But ‘e won’ thank us fer the opportun’y neither.”