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Somersett Case
''Somerset v Stewart'' (177298 ER 499(also known as ''Somersett's case'', ''v. XX Sommersett v Steuart and the Mansfield Judgment)'' is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on English soil not to be forcibly removed from the country and sent to Jamaica for sale. Lord Mansfield decided that: Slavery had never been authorized by statute within England and Wales, and Lord Mansfield found it also to be unsupported within England by the common law, although he made no comment on the position in the overseas territories of the British Empire. The case was closely followed throughout the Empire, particularly in the Thirteen American Colonies. Scholars have disagreed over precisely what legal precedent the case set. Facts James Somerset, an enslaved African, was purchased by Charles Stewart (or Steuart), a customs officer when he was in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay, a British crown colony in North America. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Mansfield
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, PC, SL (2 March 170520 March 1793) was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. Born to Scottish nobility, he was educated in Perth, Scotland, before moving to London at the age of 13 to take up a place at Westminster School. He was accepted into Christ Church, Oxford, in May 1723, and graduated four years later. Returning to London from Oxford, he was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn on 23 November 1730, and quickly gained a reputation as an excellent barrister. He became involved in politics in 1742, beginning with his election as a Member of Parliament for Boroughbridge, now in North Yorkshire, and appointment as Solicitor General. In the absence of a strong Attorney General, he became the main spokesman for the government in the House of Commons, and was noted for his "great powers of eloquence" and described as "beyond comparison the best speaker" in the House of Commons. With the promotion o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colony Of Jamaica
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962. 17th century English conquest In late 1654, English leader Oliver Cromwell launched the ''Western Design'' armada against Spain's colonies in the Caribbean. In April 1655, General Robert Venables led the armada in an attack on Spain's fort at Santo Domingo, Hispaniola. However, the Spanish repulsed this poorly-executed attack, known as the Siege of Santo Domingo, and the English troops were soon decimated by disease. Weakened by fever and looking for an easy victory following their defeat at Santo Domingo, the English force then sailed for Jamaica, the only Spanish West Indies is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky, but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified," ''Southern Pacific Company v. Jensen'', 244 U.S. 205, 222 (1917) (Oliver Wendell Holmes, dissenting). By the early 20th century, legal professionals had come to reject any idea of a higher or natural law, or a law above the law. The law arises through the act of a sovereign, whether that sovereign speaks through a legislature, executive, or judicial officer. The defining characteristic of common law is that it arises as precedent. Common law courts look to the past decisions of courts to synthesize the legal principles of past cases. '' Stare decisis'', the principle that cases should be decided according to consistent principled rules so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave. It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography. Douglass wrote three autobiographies, describing his experiences as a slave in his ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'' (1845), which became a bestseller and was influential in promoting t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abolitionism In The United States
In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the late colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1865). The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In Colonial America, a few German Quakers issued the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, which marks the beginning of the American abolitionist movement. Before the Revolutionary War, evangelical colonists were the primary advocates for the opposition to slavery and the slave trade, doing so on humanitarian grounds. James Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony of Georgia, originally tried to prohibit slavery upon its founding, a decision that was eventually reversed. During the Revolutionary era, all states abolished the international sla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Philpot Curran
John Philpot Curran (24 July 1750 – 14 October 1817) was an Irish orator, politician, wit, lawyer and judge, who held the office of Master of the Rolls in Ireland. He was renowned for his representation in 1780 of Father Neale, a Catholic priest horsewhipped by the Anglo-Irish Lord, Viscount Doneraile, and in the 1790s for his defence of United Irishmen facing capital charges of sedition and treason. His courtroom speeches were widely admired. Lord Byron was to say of Curran, "I have heard that man speak more poetry than I have seen written". Karl Marx described him as the greatest "people's advocate" of the eighteenth century. Early life Born in Newmarket, County Cork, he was the eldest of five children of James Curran, seneschal of the Newmarket manor court, and Sarah, née Philpot. The Curran family were said to have originally been named Curwen, their ancestor having come from Cumberland as a soldier under Cromwell during the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland and had origi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Glynn
John Glynn Serjeant-at-law of Glynn (1722–1779) was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1768 to 1779. Glynn was born to a family of Cornish gentry. He inherited his father's estate at Glynn in the parish of Cardinham, Cornwall, on the deaths of his elder brother and his nephew. Glynn was admitted to the Middle Temple on 21 January 1740–1741. On 28 January 1747/8, he was called to the Bar. In 1763, Glynn became serjeant-at-law, and in the following year Recorder of Exeter. Known for his skill as a pleader, Glynn was engaged in many celebrated cases. Elected to Parliament for Middlesex in 1768, Glynn served in Parliament until his death. In 1772, he was elected Recorder of London. Glynn's speeches in Parliament were highly praised. Glynn County, Georgia was named after John Glynn in recognition for his support for the cause of American independence in Parliament. Early life The second son of William Glynn of Glynn House in Cardinham, Corn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Davy (lawyer)
William Davy SL (died 1780) was an English barrister during the 18th century. Known as "Bull" Davy, he was noted as quick-witted, with a ready sense of humour, but, according to one author, relatively unscrupulous. According to Humphry William Woolrych, he was originally either a grocer or a pharmacist before being declared bankrupt and learning the doctrines around '' nisi prius'', for which much study was not required. He was admitted to the Inner Temple on 16 October 1741. Early in his career was responsible for prosecuting Elizabeth Canning. Davy became a Serjeant-at-Law on 11 February 1754, and soon after became involved in prosecutions under the Black Act. In 1762 he became King's Serjeant, then the highest accolade for a barrister. Davy argued that "the air (of England) is too pure for a slave to breathe in" when he represented James Somerset, an escaped African slave come from Boston whose London godparents had sued for a writ of ''Habeas Corpus'', in ''Somerset v Stewa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serjeant-at-law
A Serjeant-at-Law (SL), commonly known simply as a Serjeant, was a member of an order of barristers at the English and Irish Bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law (''servientes ad legem''), or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are writs dating to 1300 which identify them as descended from figures in France before the Norman Conquest, thus the Serjeants are said to be the oldest formally created order in England. The order rose during the 16th century as a small, elite group of lawyers who took much of the work in the central common law courts. With the creation of Queen's Counsel (or "Queen's Counsel Extraordinary") during the reign of Elizabeth I, the order gradually began to decline, with each monarch opting to create more King's or Queen's Counsel. The Serjeants' exclusive jurisdictions were ended during the 19th century and, with the Judicature Act 1873 coming into force in 1875, it was felt that there was no need to have such figures, and no more were created. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Mansfield
Sir James Mansfield, (originally Manfield; 1734 – 23 November 1821) was a British lawyer, judge and politician. He was twice Solicitor General and served as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas from 1799 to 1814. Early life and career The son of a Hampshire attorney, Mansfield's private life was kept somewhat guarded. His father John James changed the family name from Manfield to Mansfield. James married Grace in 1765 at St Margaret's Westminster, fathered six children (only one of whom is believed to have survived into adulthood), but also had another five children by another partner. One of these five was John Mansfield of Diggeswell, father of General William Mansfield, 1st Baron Sandhurst. Mansfield attended Eton from 1745 until 1750, and then King's College, Cambridge, of which he was elected a fellow in 1754. He graduated with a BA in 1755 and an MA in 1758. Mansfield pursued a career in law, obtaining admission to the Middle Temple on 11 February 1755 and being called ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Hargrave
Francis Hargrave (c.1741–1821) was an English lawyer and antiquary. He was the most prominent of the five advocates who appeared on behalf of James Somersett in the case which determined, in 1772, the legal status of slaves in England. Although the case was Hargrave's first, his efforts on the occasion secured his reputation. Life Hargrave was born in London, the son of Christopher Hargrave of Chancery Lane. He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn in 1760. He came to prominence because of his performance in 1772, in Somersett's case, and shortly afterwards was made King's Counsel. Thereafter, he specialised in legal history and commentary and did not take further part in the abolitionist campaign. In 1797 he was made Recorder of Liverpool, and for many years was treasurer of Lincoln's Inn and a leading parliamentary lawyer. He continued the celebrated compendium of State Trials begun by Thomas Salmon and Sollom Emlyn, which was later expanded by Thomas Bayly Howell. He fell i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British abolitionist movement started in the late 18th century when English and American Quakers began to question the morality of slavery. James Oglethorpe was among the first to articulate the Enlightenment case against slavery, banning it in the Province of Georgia on humanitarian grounds, and arguing against it in Parliament, and eventually encouraging his friends Granville Sharp and Hannah More to vigorously pursue the cause. Soon after Oglethorpe's death in 1785, Sharp and More united with William Wilberforce and others in forming the Clapham Sect. The Somersett case in 1772, in which a fugitive slave was freed with the judgement that slavery did not exist under English common law, helped launch the British movement to abolish slavery. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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