Heading: (1856 Before Dred Scott: Abolitionist tried for aiding slave escape)
Author:
Title: Before Dred Scott: Abolitionist tried for aiding slave escape- The Case of Passmore Williamson
Place Published: Philadelphia
Publisher:
Date Published: 1856
Description:

Case of Passmore Williamson / Report of the Proceedings on the Writ of Habeas Corpus, Issued by The Hon. John K. Kane, Judge of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in the case of The United States of America Ex Rel. John H. Wheeler vs. Passmore Williamson, Including The Several Opinions Delivered, and The Arguments of Counsel…(Philadelphia, 1856) First Edition.

This was the trial, not of fugitive slaves, but of a white man who aided them. Williamson, secretary of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, joined a group of free Blacks who helped three slaves – a mother and her two sons – escape from their master, an American diplomat from North Carolina, aboard a boat bound from Philadelphia to New York. Refusing to reveal the whereabouts of the Blacks, Williamson was convicted of contempt of court and served three months in prison, where he was visited by Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Though less remembered than the Dred Scott case, which inflamed the nation the following year, Williamson’s trial was one of the most notable slavery court cases of the antebellum years.

Ex-library bookplate and embossed stamp. Original cloth binding; spine replaced with brown library tape. very Good condition.