Zones of Law, Zones of Violence: The Legal Geography of the British Atlantic, circa 1772
Zones of Law, Zones of Violence: The Legal Geography of the British Atlantic, circa 1772
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法律区域、暴力区域：英国大西洋的法律地理，约 1772 年
DOI：
10.2307/3491549
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发表时间：
2003
影响因子：
0.8
通讯作者：
Eliga H. Gould
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Eliga H. Gould
1772年6月22日，在伦敦威斯敏斯特大厅拥挤的法庭上，首席大法官曼斯菲尔德发表了他现在著名的观点，认为詹姆斯·萨默塞特，一个跟随主人从波士顿逃跑的奴隶，不能被强行送回牙买加（他的主人想要的），“必须被释放”。在为萨默塞特的判决中，曼斯菲尔德拒绝裁决在英格兰拥有奴隶的基本合法性。尽管如此，为了证明这种地位的重大改变是合理的，曼斯菲尔德宣称奴隶制是“可恶的”，只能得到“成文法”的支持，而这正是英国所缺乏的据《晨报》（Morning Chronicle）报道，在画廊目睹了这一过程的黑人离开时“互相握手”，并祝贺自己“幸运地呼吸到了英国的自由空气”。西印度群岛的种植园主爱德华·朗则不那么热情，他也认为，不管他声明的目的是什么，曼斯菲尔德已经使得在法律上不可能收回生活在英国的“逃亡奴隶”。正如西摩·德雷斯彻所写，萨默塞特诉斯图尔特案预示着大都市“阶级斗争”的决定性转变
N June 22, 1772, before a packed courtroom in London's Westminster Hall, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield delivered his now-famous opinion that James Somerset, an enslaved man who had escaped after accompanying his master from Boston, could not be forcibly returned to Jamaica (as his master intended) and "must be discharged." In finding for Somerset, Mansfield refused to rule on the underlying legality of owning slaves in England. Nonetheless, to justify such a significant alteration in status, Mansfield declared that slavery was "odious" and could only be supported by "positive law," which England lacked.1 According to the Morning Chronicle, blacks who witnessed the proceedings from the gallery left "shaking each other by the hand" and congratulating themselves on the "happy lot that permitted them to breathe the free air of England."2 Less ebullient, the West Indian planter Edward Long agreed that, whatever his stated purpose, Mansfield had made it legally impossible to reclaim a "fugitive slave" living in England.3 As Seymour Drescher has written, Somerset v. Stewart heralded a decisive shift in the metropolitan "class struggle between mas-