Nothing But Liberty: Somerset's Case and the British Empire

Abstract

George Van Cleve places Somerset's Case squarely in the middle of Britain's imperial history. It belongs there. After clarifying the “narrow” holding in the case—that Charles Stewart could not forcibly remove James Somerset from England—Van Cleve argues that Chief Justice Mansfield and his Court of King's Bench “creat[ed] a new legal framework for slavery” and “did so quite knowingly at the price of undercutting the legal, economic and moral basis of slavery as an institution throughout the Atlantic Empire.” This argument that Somerset's Case transformed slavery law throughout the British Empire rests on three claims. First, Van Cleve views Somerset's Case as an imperial conflict of laws case because it involved a conflict between the laws of two royal territories, England and Virginia. Second, Van Cleve contends that Mansfield intended the decision and his remarks accompanying it about the positive law foundation of slavery to have abolitionist effects. Finally, these two points are related: Mansfield drew a distinction “between English and colonial law on slavery” in order to undermine slavery across the empire.