Slavery on Trial: Law, Abolitionism, and Print Culture (review)

Given the legal basis for American slavery and the limitations on black testimony, the odds were stacked against slaves winning their freedom in a court of law. However, by the 1830s, abolitionist advocates had devised a means to move black testimony out of unfriendly legal forums to the court of public opinion. By using the Aristotelian principle of "engaging the imagination in conjunction with the emotions," abolitionists were able to move their audience "to exemplary civic action" by taking the plight of slaves directly to the public (105). In this way, they played a significant role in the development of the print culture in America, as evidenced by the publication of slave narratives and various legal treatises. In this pathbreaking work, Slavery on Trial, Jeannine DeLombard illustrates how the debate about slavery shifted conversations in the United States from an exclusionary policy ultimately to the recognition of African American citizenship. To "fully understand" "antebellum American literature," she suggests, readers need to better appreciate "the popular legal consciousness that permeated both the slavery controversy and the print culture in which it was conducted" (2).

DeLombard makes her case in several ways. She shows that legal battles over slavery had appeared in the print culture of the colonies since Samuel Sewell published The Selling of Joseph (1700). She cites various court cases—including Somerset v. Stewart (1772), Commonwealth v. Aves (1836), and Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842)—to illustrate the emergence of a law of black freedom. Moreover, she argues that print coverage of the slavery debate exploded in 1850, with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. Sensational court cases immediately surfaced: Shadrach Minkins in Boston, the "Jerry Rescue" in Syracuse, James Hamlet and Anthony Burns in New York City, the Christiana Riot in Pennsylvania, and the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue and the Margaret Garner case in Ohio. All of these cases were covered up by the print media throughout the North; these stories of dramatic rescues and sensational gun battles became fodder for the penny press.

Second, Slavery on Trial describes how white abolitionists took leadership in advancing arguments about ending slavery. White testimony was frequently sensational but often unrealistic. For example, in the case of James Hamlet, whites' perception did not always reflect the reality faced by slaves. Most whites did not see continental Africans as being civilized: this perception is reflected in abolitionists' portrayal of James Hamlet in a half-naked engraving, "dressed only in a loincloth" (35). Most whites did not believe blacks had the capacity to act as powerful agents; hence, an engraving shows Hamlet on his knees, begging to be let go. DeLombard recognizes that the caricature did not portray the likeness of Hamlet but insists "it would have matched many northerners' mental image of 'The Slave'" (35).

Whereas white testimony against slavery was useful, it was also limited because of racial bias. The introduction of the slave narrative transformed the slave into a powerful witness as well as changed the notion that slaves had only civic agency, wherein they were responsible for crimes against whites. DeLombard presents Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass as eyewitnesses to cruelty inherent in a society that allowed slavery. She makes the case that Truth and Douglass demonstrate that African Americans also possessed personal agency, whereby they acted to assert their rights. Truth was not only knowledgeable about the law but also fearless, defying white defenders of slavery and initiating lawsuits against wealthy whites. Similarly, according to DeLombard, Douglass made an important shift from that of a slave witness to "the more authoritative persona of black advocate" (104).

DeLombard's Slavery on Trial is a well-written opus crafted by a skillful literary critic. She ably integrates the methodologies of literature, history, and law to make a convincing argument that the debate over slavery contributed to the development of print culture in antebellum America. Slavery on Trial also provides compelling evidence that African Americans contributed to...