Justin Buckley Dyer holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Oklahoma and an MA and Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas, Austin. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri, Columbia. His research has been published in Polity, the Journal of Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics and Perspectives on Political Science.

'In this provocative book, Justin Buckley Dyer makes a case for the US Constitution's natural law foundations. He does not divine the Constitution's meaning from the intent of the Founders or the understanding of the ratifiers, however. Rather, he argues that natural law informed constitutional thinking and that abolitionists who deployed natural law concepts in their subsequent reading of the Constitution were substantially right.' H. Robert Baker, The Journal of American History

• 1. Prologue: slavery and the laws and rights of nature; 2. Introduction: the apple of gold; 3. Somerset and the antislavery constitutional tradition; 4. Constitutional disharmony in The Antelope and La Amistad; 5. Constitutional construction in Prigg and Dred Scott; 6. Natural law, providence, and Lincoln's constitutional statesmanship; 7. Public reason and the wrong of slavery; 8. Conclusion: the heritage of the antislavery constitutional tradition.

Justin Buckley Dyer holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Oklahoma and an MA and Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas, Austin. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri, Columbia. His research has been published in Polity, the Journal of Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics and Perspectives on Political Science.

'In this provocative book, Justin Buckley Dyer makes a case for the US Constitution's natural law foundations. He does not divine the Constitution's meaning from the intent of the Founders or the understanding of the ratifiers, however. Rather, he argues that natural law informed constitutional thinking and that abolitionists who deployed natural law concepts in their subsequent reading of the Constitution were substantially right.' H. Robert Baker, The Journal of American History

• 1. Prologue: slavery and the laws and rights of nature; 2. Introduction: the apple of gold; 3. Somerset and the antislavery constitutional tradition; 4. Constitutional disharmony in The Antelope and La Amistad; 5. Constitutional construction in Prigg and Dred Scott; 6. Natural law, providence, and Lincoln's constitutional statesmanship; 7. Public reason and the wrong of slavery; 8. Conclusion: the heritage of the antislavery constitutional tradition.

Justin Buckley Dyer holds a BA in Political Science from the University of Oklahoma and an MA and Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas, Austin. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri, Columbia. His research has been published in Polity, the Journal of Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics and Perspectives on Political Science.

'In this provocative book, Justin Buckley Dyer makes a case for the US Constitution's natural law foundations. He does not divine the Constitution's meaning from the intent of the Founders or the understanding of the ratifiers, however. Rather, he argues that natural law informed constitutional thinking and that abolitionists who deployed natural law concepts in their subsequent reading of the Constitution were substantially right.' H. Robert Baker, The Journal of American History

• 1. Prologue: slavery and the laws and rights of nature; 2. Introduction: the apple of gold; 3. Somerset and the antislavery constitutional tradition; 4. Constitutional disharmony in The Antelope and La Amistad; 5. Constitutional construction in Prigg and Dred Scott; 6. Natural law, providence, and Lincoln's constitutional statesmanship; 7. Public reason and the wrong of slavery; 8. Conclusion: the heritage of the antislavery constitutional tradition.