H. Robert Baker - Böcker

Margaret Morgan was born in freedom's shadow. Her parents were slaves of John Ashmore, a prosperous Maryland mill owner who freed many of his slaves in the last years of his life. Ashmore never laid claim to Margaret, who eventually married a free black man and moved to Pennsylvania. Then, John Ashmore's widow sent Edward Prigg to Pennsylvania to claim Margaret as a runaway. Prigg seized Margaret and her children - one of them born in Pennsylvania - and forcibly removed them to Maryland in violation of Pennsylvania law. In the ensuing uproar, Prigg was indicted for kidnapping under Pennsylvania's personal liberty law. Maryland, however, blocked his extradition, setting the stage for a remarkable Supreme Court case in 1842.In Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the Supreme Court considered more than just the fate of a single slavecatcher. The Court's majority struck down the free states' personal liberty laws and reaffirmed federal supremacy in determining the procedures for fugitive slave rendition. H. Robert Baker has written the first and only book-length treatment of this landmark case that became a pivot point for antebellum politics and law some fifteen years before Dred Scott.Baker addresses the Constitution's ambivalence regarding slavery and freedom. At issue were the reach of slaveholders' property rights into the free states, the rights of free blacks, and the relative powers of the federal and state governments. By announcing federal supremacy in regulating fugitive slave rendition, Prigg v. Pennsylvania was meant to bolster what slaveholders claimed as a constitutional right. But the decision cast into doubt the ability of free states to define freedom and to protect their free black populations from kidnapping.Baker's eye-opening account raises crucial questions about the place of slavery in the Constitution and the role of the courts in protecting it in antebellum America. More than that, it demonstrates how judges fashion conflicting constitutional interpretations from the same sources of law. Ultimately, it offers an instructive look at how constitutional interpretation that claims to be faithful to neutral legal principles and a definitive original meaning is nonetheless freighted with contemporary politics and morality. Prigg v. Pennsylvania is a sobering lesson for those concerned with today's controversial issues, as states seek to supplement and preempt federal immigration law or to overturn Roe v. Wade.

On March 11, 1854, the people of Wisconsin prevented agents of the federal government from carrying away the fugitive slave, Joshua Glover. Assembling in mass outside the Milwaukee courthouse, they demanded that the federal officers respect his civil liberties as they would those of any other citizen of the state. When the officers refused, the crowd took matters into its own hands and rescued Joshua Glover. The federal government brought his rescuers to trial, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court intervened and took the bold step of ruling the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional.The Rescue of Joshua Glover delves into the courtroom trials, political battles, and cultural equivocation precipitated by Joshua Glover's brief, but enormously important, appearance in Wisconsin on the eve of the Civil War.H. Robert Baker articulates the many ways in which this case evoked powerful emotions in antebellum America, just as the stage adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin was touring the country and stirring antislavery sentiments. Terribly conflicted about race, Americans struggled mightily with a revolutionary heritage that sanctified liberty but also brooked compromise with slavery. Nevertheless, as The Rescue of Joshua Glover demonstrates, they maintained the principle that the people themselves were the last defenders of constitutional liberty, even as Glover's rescue raised troubling questions about citizenship and the place of free blacks in America.

Teaching Enslavement in American History provides classroom teachers with the resources necessary to navigate one of the most difficult topics in any history course. This volume is the product of a collaboration between three university professors and a team of experienced middle and high school teachers. Its nine chapters include the context for topics like the middle passage, the Constitution’s position on enslavement, African cultural retention, and resistance to enslavement. The resources include 18 lesson plans and dozens of short primary and secondary sources modeled on document-based questions and the inquiry design model. Real teaching requires courage, a deep understanding of the complexity of the subject matter, and skillful use of primary sources. Rather than teaching students what to think, Teaching Enslavement in American History pushes students to learn how to think: empirical argumentation, source evaluation, understanding of change-over-time, and analysis of historical context. The lessons in this book ask students to read, analyze, and contextualize a variety of primary sources, to identify the limitations of these sources and to articulate historical contradiction where it occurs. At the heart of this book is the belief that historical consciousness leads to societal change. Teaching about enslavement is not merely about teaching a curriculum, it is about molding citizens who will lead our democracy in its journey to become a more perfect union.