Скачать или смотреть The Quock Walker Case - Massachusetts 1793, steps to end slavery

The Quock Walker Case - Massachusetts 1793, steps to end slavery.
The status of slavery in Massachusetts was throughout the Revolutionary period, a matter of uncertainty. As early as 1770–two years before Lord Mansfield's decision in the famous Somerset case, in the case of James v. Lechmere the Superior Court of Massachusetts ruled that the plaintiff, a negro, was entitled to his freedom under the laws of the province and the terms of the royal charter. In the course of his decision in the case of Winchendon v. Hatfield, Chief Justice Parsons said, "Several negroes born in this country of imported slaves demanded their freedom of their masters by suit at law, and obtained it by a judgement of court. The defense of the master was faintly made, for such was the temper of the times, that a restless, discontented slave was worth little; and when his freedom was obtained in a course of legal proceedings, the master was not holden for his future support if he became poor. But in the first action, involving the right of the master, which come before the Supreme Judicial Court after the establishment of the Constitution, the judges declared that by virtue of the first article of the Declaration of Rights, slavery in this state was no more." This was the case of Quock Walker v. Nathaniel Jennison, 1783. Jennison, indicted for assault on Walker, justified his assault on the ground that Walker was his slave. The Court, however, speaking through Chief Justice Cushing, ruled that the first article of the Declaration of Rights had abolished slavery in Massachusetts. The case was not reported, but in 1874 Chief Justice Horace Gray read from the original notebook of Chief Justice Cushing, the following extract from his decision.