Customer Reviews

Justice Accused: Antislavery and the Judicial Process

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I studied this book in law school. I think the central question of this book is a little deeper than the way the previous reviewer phrased it. The book explores the conflict that occurs when a judge perceives that the law applying to a case before him is not a just one and will result in injustice if applied in the current case. Does the judge simply apply the law, or find some way around it to allow for a just result? This is an interesting question today, given the debate between "strict construction" of the Constitution and Holmes' popular notion that the Constitution is a "living document" whose interpretation must evolve with the times. The chief example used in this book is the infamous Dred Scott decision, in which a slave who had lived for many years on free soil, sued for his freedom, but was turned down by the Supreme Court on Constitutional grounds -- although presumably the judges knew that this was not a just result.

Justice Accused addresses why antebellum judges who opposed slavery nonetheless felt powerless to do any thing but enforce it.