Ableman v. Booth 1859

• Author: Daniel Brannen, Richard Hanes, Elizabeth Shaw
• Pages: 557-562

Contenidos

• Escape.
• Wisconsin Challenges the Federal Government.
• Federal Courts Reign Supreme.
• Aftermath.
• Suggestions for further reading.

Page 557

Appellants: Stephen V.R. Ableman and the United States

Appellee: Sherman M. Booth

Appellant's Claim: That Booth, who had been freed from jail by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, should serve the sentence imposed by a federal court for helping a slave escape.

Chief Lawyer for Appellants: Jeremiah S. Black, U.S. Attorney General

Chief Lawyer for Appellee: None

Justices for the Court: John Archibald Campbell, John Catron, Nathan Clifford, Peter Vivian Daniel, Robert Cooper Grier, John McLean, Samuel Nelson, Roger Brooke Taney, James Moore Wayne

Justices Dissenting: None

Date of Decision: March 7, 1859

Decision: A state court cannot free a prisoner from confinement by the United States government.

Significance: On one level, Ableman strengthened the federal government's power and weakened state power by declaring federal law supreme. On another level, the decision was a victory for slavery, which would divide the country in a civil war just two years later.

Page 558

The Ableman cases were part of the turmoil that split the United States apart in the American Civil War. Just like the war, the cases concerned the issues of slavery, the supreme power of the federal government, and states' rights.

Joshua Glover was a slave on a farm in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1852, Glover escaped from his owner, Bennami S. Garland, and fled to the free state of Wisconsin. There Glover found work at a sawmill near Racine.

Article IV of the U.S. Constitution said escaped slaves must be returned to their owners. Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Congress set up a procedure to accomplish this. The law allowed slave owners to get a warrant from a federal commissioner to return an escaped slave to captivity. The commissioners were allowed to recruit people to help the slave owner capture the escaped slave.

On March 10, 1854, Glover was playing cards with two African American friends in a cabin on the outskirts of Racine. Garland appeared at the cabin with two U.S. deputy marshals and four other men to capture Glover. Garland and his men injured Glover during a struggle, handcuffed him, and took him to a jail in Milwaukee. At the time, the federal government used state and local jails because it did not have many of its own.

Escape

Abolitionists in Milwaukee soon learned of Glover's arrest. Abolitionists were people who wanted to get rid of, or abolish, slavery. Sherman...