Natural law and the antislavery constitutional tradition / / Justin Buckley Dyer

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910823523503321
• Autore: Dyer Justin Buckley <1983->
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Cambridge ; ; New York, : Cambridge University Press, 2012
• ISBN: 1-107-22960-X; 1-139-20991-4; 1-280-48524-8; 1-139-22284-8; 9786613580221; 1-139-21804-2; 1-139-00507-3; 1-139-22456-5; 1-139-21495-0; 1-139-22112-4
• Edizione: [1st ed.]
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (x, 197 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)
• Classificazione: POL040000
• Disciplina: 342.7308/7
• Soggetti: Slavery - Law and legislation - United States; Constitutional history - United States; Antislavery movements - United States; Natural law - Influence
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Prologue. Slavery and the laws and rights of nature -- Introduction. The apple of gold -- Somerset and the antislavery constitutional tradition -- Constitutional disharmony in The Antelope and La Amistad -- Constitutional construction in Prigg and Dred Scott -- Natural law, providence, and Lincoln's constitutional statesmanship -- Public reason and the wrong of slavery -- Conclusion. The heritage of the antislavery constitutional tradition.
• Sommario/riassunto: In Natural Law and the Antislavery Constitutional Tradition, Justin Buckley Dyer provides a succinct account of the development of American antislavery constitutionalism in the years preceding the Civil ; War. Within the context of recent revisionist scholarship, Dyer argues that the theoretical foundations of American constitutionalism - which he identifies with principles of natural law - were antagonistic to slavery. Still, the continued existence of slavery in the nineteenth century created a tension between practice and principle. In a series of case studies, Dyer reconstructs the constitutional arguments of prominent antislavery thinkers such as John Quincy Adams, John McLean, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, who collectively sought to overcome the legacy of slavery by emphasizing the natural law foundations of American constitutionalism. What emerges is a convoluted understanding of American constitutional development that challenges traditional narratives of linear progress while highlighting the centrality of natural law to America's greatest constitutional crisis.