Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 01 July 2005
• Author: Gwynn, Ellen B.
• Published date: 01 July 2005
• Author: Gwynn, Ellen B.

Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery by Steven M. Wise

What required four years of bloodshed that nearly destroyed the United States, England had accomplished by a civil lawsuit a century before. In 1769, an American slave, James Somerset, accompanied his owner, Charles Steuart, on a vacation to London, where he ran away. After slavecatchers found him, Steuart punished him by shipping him out to the slave markets of Jamaica. Before the ship set sail, however, a writ of habeas corpus issued, commencing the case of Somerset v. Steuart.

Lawyer and law professor Steven M. Wise centers his book, Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery around the case, which seemed to call for the simple determination that Steuart had lawfully purchased Somerset in Virginia, and thus had the clear right to sell him. But Somerset had obtained the assistance of Granville Sharp, an ordnance clerk who had been devoting his small resources and tenacious determination to a series of lawsuits designed to secure the abolition of slavery. Sharp...