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British Views of Liberty
William Blackstone, from Commentaries
on the Laws of England
The jurist Sir William Blackstone
(1723–1780) was appointed the first
Vinerian Professor of English Law at Oxford
in 1758. After his Oxford lectures were published
(1765), they were long regarded as the standard
authority on the development of English law,
and were cited in order to demonstrate the
wisdom and justice of English institutions,
which were deeply grounded in history and
reason. Hence Blackstone's opinions on
liberty and slavery carried great weight
in the judicial interpretation of legal rights.
The idea and practice of this political
or civil liberty flourish in their highest
vigour in these kingdoms, where it falls
little short of perfection, and can only
be lost or destroyed by the folly or demerits
of it's owner: the legislature, and of
course the laws of England, being peculiarly
adapted to the preservation of this inestimable
blessing even in the meanest subject. Very
different from the modern constitutions of
other states, on the continent of Europe,
and from the genius of the imperial law;
which in general are calculated to vest an
arbitrary and despotic power of controlling
the actions of the subject in the prince,
or in a few grandees. And this spirit of
liberty is so deeply implanted in our constitution,
and rooted even in our very soil, that a
slave or a negro, the moment he lands in
England, falls under the protection of the
laws, and with regard to all natural rights
becomes eo instanti a freeman.
In the third edition (1768–69),
the end of the final sentence was revised
(after "laws") as follows: "and
so far becomes a freeman; though the master's
right to his service may probably still continue." Blackstone
did not want the passage used to support
the doctrine that a master would automatically
lose his right to the service of any slave
brought to England.
In 1771 James Somerset, a slave
who had been brought from Virginia to England,
escaped from his master. A month later he
was recaptured and put on board a ship bound
for Jamaica. But he and his case were brought
to the Court of King's Bench, and after
a lengthy trial, in 1772 Lord Mansfield decided
that, whether or not there could be slaves
in England, a master had no right to compel
a slave to go into a foreign country. Somerset
was freed. Though the legal status of the
case was far from clear, in practice it put
an end to slavery in England. For a later
Scottish case, see Samuel Johnson's Brief
to Free a Slave (NAEL 8, 1.2849).
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