Mock Trial Reaction
The mock trial was on State v Mann. John Mann shot a slave he rented after she tried to run away due to John abusing her. John was found guilty of assault and battery and was fined five dollars (cwnc.omeka). Adjusted for inflation thats $166.86 in today's money (officialdata.org). Obviously from today's standards we can see this as the gross miscarriage of justice that it is, and our good pal John Mann agrees with us, so he appealed the case to the supreme court. Of course we would wish that John Mann faced jail time while he was just trying to appeal the fine. That's ultimately what this mock trial is about, and both sides had arguments that I found very interesting.
On the state side, seeking to uphold the five dollar fine, the economic and wrong side of history arguments were the most interesting to me. In debates regarding slavery at the time, economic factors were most commonly used as a reason to uphold the institution, but in this case it was used against the institution in a really unique way. The state argued that if slaves are so important to the economy, why are we shooting them and treating them badly? that will just cause productivity to go down. This is a really interesting twist on the economic argument that is very strong. The wrong side of history argument was about how many other countries at the time had already abolished slavery. Many other countries already knew slavery was wrong, so we can't just give them the benefit of time. The U.S. was falling behind other countries and needed to progress, I really liked this argument.
On John Mann's side, arguing to give Mann his five dollars back there were a few arguments that stood out to me. One argument was that if Lydia, the slave, ran away, she could've become dangerous. John was simply protecting society by shooting her. Obviously this is pretty racist and doesn't have much basis, but for an argument of the time it worked really well. This really was what people believed at the time, so I think it captured the feelings of the era well. Another argument I found interesting was that Lydia was committing the crime of running away, why should John Mann be punished for holding her accountable? This was a really interesting way to put it and this argument stuck with me.
EOTO Reaction
The EOTO had two parts: Events that advanced slavery, and The Founding Era (De Jure Slavery).
For events that advanced slavery there were several new things that I learned. From the Missouri compromise, I learned that part of the reason congress compromised it was because they didn't want to take an official stance on slavery. Goes to show really how divisive the issue was, also reminds me of modern similarly spineless politicians. Another interesting thing I learned was the during the election of 1860, Lincoln wasn't included in the ballots of ten southern states, but he still won. I couldn't possibly imagine that happening today, multiple states just not including a major candidate on their ballot. It's shocking how bad the political landscape got at this time.
For De Jure Slavery, there was also a few new things I learned. One thing that shocked me is how many slaves were freed by the underground railroad. I didn't know how big it was but apparently tens of thousands of slaves were freed by it. Another interesting fact I learned was that part of the reason Lincoln won, was that the democratic party was split between two candidates. Lastly, I learned about the American Anti-Slavery Society. I'd actually never been taught of this before, but it was the largest abolitionist organization in the United States and featured such names as William Lloyd Garrison, Arthur Tappan, and Frederick Douglass. Agents of the organization would travel the country and disturb pro slavery movements. I think this is really cool, I wish I learned about it earlier.
Sources:
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/underground-railroad/
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