The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave, the Constitution, and the Coming of the Civil War (Law Society & Politics in the Midwest) [Paperback]

H. Robert Baker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 15, 2007 | Series: Law Society & Politics in the Midwest

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.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

H. Robert Baker is a visiting assistant professor in history at Marquette University.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Ohio University Press; 1 edition (December 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821418130
• ISBN-13: 978-0821418130
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #515,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write primarily about fugitive slaves and abolitionists. My current project is a book on the Supreme Court case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842). My next project will be on the Oberlin rescue of 1858. Fugitive slaves interest me because they are the quintessential Americans: freedom-loving, ruggedly individualistic, and on the run. They were fugitives rather than refugees only because the Constitution defined them as such, although precisely how was a disputed matter. I hope in my work to elucidate how the contested terrain of constitutional law provided conceptual place for fugitives to seek their freedom. This placed nineteenth-century Americans in a bind. Faced with a constitutional mandate to return fugitive slaves to their owners, Americans had either to reject the command (and thus repudiate the Constitution) or accept it (thus accepting responsibility for reducing human beings to slavery). Constitutional evil is something we still struggle with today, and I hope my work sheds light on how Americans negotiated this in the past.