?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 350 - $ 500
THOMPSON, SMITH. Decision of Judge Smith Thompson of the Connecticut Circuit Court [in] The United States Commercial & Statistical Register, pages 244-245 of Volume 1, No 16. Tall 4to, removed from a larger volume. Philadelphia: 9 October, 1839
On 14 September, 1839, the Mende captives were sent by canal boat and stage-coach to Hartford for their trial. Roger Baldwin, for the defense, argued that "no power on earth has the right to reduce [the Africans] to slavery" and the U. S. should never stoop to become a "slave-catcher for foreign slave-holders." Judge Thompson evaded the larger debate over abolition and rested his decision strictly on jurisdictional grounds.
