Slaves

In 1628, the English Parliament demanded that King Charles I sign the Petition of Right, causing the English Civil War. This war led to laws that legitimized slavery and the impressment of Anglo sailors and left behind an insurrectionary ideology that American colonists adapted during the American Revolutionary War. After the war, this ideology inspired the Constitution and later inspired slave revolts, and sailor mutinies for civil liberties won during the Revolution. As the capitalist economy grew and ensnared the new nation, this ideology entered reformer communities. American law relied on lawyers, jurists, and politicians to balance liberty, property, and a racial divide. White sailors did not face racialized slavery but experienced exploitation through American law. This relationship's intersection of economy and identity helps explain why sailors' rights helped reform American law and emancipate the slave.

A legend told by T.O. Summers, with 18 orig. illus. drawn by Horace W. Wightman. List of illustrations.

In the fall of 1864, Maryland became the first Border State to abolish slavery with the adoption of a new state constitution. In order to best understand the evolution of this event, the purpose of this study was to examine the civil-military relations of Maryland during the Civil War and how these relations affected the institution of slavery in the state. Therefore, the main argument is that the conflict between military and civil authorities in Maryland during the war revealed two points: first, that the federal government maintained a faithful vigilance over the state during the war and second, that the federal government exploited a fading slavery system to not only eliminate any possibility of Maryland entering the Confederacy, but also destroy any degree of Border State neutrality.