"ON A LEVEL WITH JULY 1776 AS A DETERMINANT OF THE FUTURE OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA": EXCEEDINGLY RARE FIRST EDITION OF HARGRAVE'S ARGUMENT IN THE CASE OF JAMES SOMMERSETT, 1772—"THE MOST QUOTED SLAVE CASE IN ANGLO-AMERICAN LAW AND THE MOST IMPORTANT"

HARGRAVE, Mr. (Francis). An Argument in the Case of James Sommersett A Negro, Lately Determined by the Court of King's Bench: Wherein it is attempted to demonstrate the Present Unlawfulness of Domestic Slavery in England. To which Is Prefixed a State of the Case. London: Printed for the Author; And sold by W. Otridge, 1772. Octavo, period-style half brown morocco and paper boards, black gilt-lettered spine label; pp. (i-ii), (1-3), 4-82. $10,800.

First edition of Hargrave's seminal Argument, featuring his well-documented legal analysis, based on his "oral presentation" and vital to Lord Mansfield's 1772 opinion in Somerset v Stewart, establishing "principles that dominated all later controversies about slavery," denounced by Franklin, then in London, as hypocritical in boasting of Britain's "love of liberty and equity in setting free a single negro," precedes the 1773 first American edition demonstrating "Americans not only knew of Somerset at the time of the Revolution and the framing of the Constitution but also had access to the legal arguments surrounding the case."

Mansfield's 1772 opinion in "Somerset v Stewart was the foundation of all subsequent legal debate over slavery in the U.S. It exercised a profound influence on the law of slavery in America, passing as it did into the common law of the states after independence." The case centered on James Somerset (aka Sommersett) who, born in Africa, survived the Middle Passage to be bought in Virginia by a Scottish merchant who moved Somerset to Boston and, after several years, to Britain, where he briefly escaped before being captured and "consigned to a ship captain to be sold in Jamaica. The great British abolitionist Granville Sharp obtained a writ of habeas corpus from Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, to inquire into the cause of Somerset's detention" (Finkelman, American Legal History, 95). Sharp organized, "for the first time in British history… a concerted campaign against the slave trade" (Schama, Rough Crossings, 46).

The 1772 ruling in Somerset was "on a level with July 1776 as a determinant of the future of British North America" (Horne, Counter-Revolution, 209). Mansfield's decision noted: "the exercise of the power of a master over his slave must be supported by the Laws of particular Countries; but no foreigner can in England claim such a right over a man; such a claim is not known to the laws of England… therefore the Man must be discharged." Somerset argued "that the power of a master to transport his slave against his will, out of England and to a place where he might be sold, had never been known or recognized under Common Law. And that, indeed, was the ground on which Somerset had been liberated" (Schama, 55, original emphasis). Somerset is "the most quoted slave case in Anglo-American law and the most important." Hargrave's work in this very rare first edition draws on "his notes from oral presentation." His reasoning was substantially "incorporated into Mansfield's opinion," especially Hargrave's "argument that slavery must be either completely accepted or completely rejected." This proved vital for Americans in that it gave lawyers, abolitionists and others the ability "to read a clear, well-reasoned, and carefully documented attack on the legality of slavery in a free jurisdiction." The first 1773 and 1774 American printings are "particularly significant in this way… [showing] Americans not only knew of Somerset at the time of the Revolution and the framing of the Constitution but also had access to the legal arguments surrounding the case" (Finkelman, Slavery in the Courtroom, 21-22).

Somerset "was even more influential in America" than London (Wise, Though the Heavens May Fall, 199). "It is revealing that this crucial moment of truth in British-Atlantic politics could emerge out of a court case involving a Virginia fugitive… the Somerset case demonstrated that slaveholders had at least as much to fear from [English] parliamentary sovereignty as did merchants" (Waldstreicher, Slavery's Constitution, 40-42). Franklin, "in London for the Somerset trial, thought the British, not the Americans, were the hypocrites for indulging themselves so heavily in an orgy of self-congratulation on their 'virtue, love of liberty and equity in setting free a single negro' while remaining deaf to the pleas of colonies such as Pennsylvania that were petitioning the government for an end to the importation of slaves" (Schama, 57). Even before publication of the 1773 first American edition, Somerset "took on a life of its own and entered the mainstream of American constitutional discourse. It furnished abolitionists with some of the most potent doctrinal weapons in their arsenal." Northern courts would rely on it when dealing with fugitives and "sojourner slaves" who were held by their owners while temporarily in residence. This was especially central to Lemmon v The People (1860), when the "New York Court of Appeals liberated slaves who were in transit from Virginia to Texas via the port of New York," and Anderson v Poindexter (1857), where the Ohio Supreme Court adopted neo-Somerset principles to free sojourners' slaves in that state, holding slavery to be 'repugnant to reason and the principles of natural law'" (Wiecek, Sources, 21, 286). Somerset "articulate[d] principles that dominated all later controversies about slavery" (Finkelman, American Legal History, 95). First edition, first printing: with half title, printed errata on rear text leaf. ESTC T22378. Sabin 30374. Early inked "1772" above half title, first text page.

In fine condition.