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.
#1860697 in Books Jenny Shaw 2013-11-15 2013-11-15Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.05 x .68 x 6.07l; .86 #File Name: 0820346624280 pagesEveryday Life in the Early English Caribbean
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. insightful study of the early English CaribbeanBy hmf22Shaw illuminates the development of society in the seventeenth-century English Caribbean with deftness and sensitivity; tracing how Irish servants and African slaves lived and worked beside each other; sharing many things (work tools and diet; for example) while also maintaining cultural and religious differences from each other and from their English masters. Her main theme is the gradual shift from constructions of difference based on religion; culture; and free/unfree status towards a simpler model of difference based on race; official discussion and English record-keeping practices (e.g. in early Caribbean censuses) tended to obscure the large and (from the English point of view) problematic Irish presence in the seventeenth-century English Caribbean. Well-written and engaging; with plenty of human interest; as well as careful discussion of extant sources and a full bibliography.
