Smoke, Mirrors, And Chains

Chattel slavery was America's first continuing criminal enterprise. The Magna Carta, England's Bill of Rights and its common law made hereditary slavery unlawful on British soil and made Blacks born in His Majesty's original thirteen colonies in America freeborn Englishmen who could not be made slaves, yet they were due to public corruption. But with Lord Chief Justice Mansfield's utterance in 1772 - "LET JUSTICE BE DONE THOUGH THE HEAVENS FALL" - a freedom trial of a slave named James Somersett was transformed into one of England's most historic legal cases. Held before His Majesty's King's Bench, a unanimous high court ruled "the state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law [statute], which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. . . I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the Black must be discharged." England's highest court declared slavery was unconstitutional in America, but nothing changed. The criminal practice continued and was a major catalyst for the American Revolution.

• | Author: Larry Kenneth Alexander
• | Publisher: Trafford
• | Publication Date: Oct 26, 2016
• | Number of Pages: 398 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1490768335
• | ISBN-13: 9781490768335