Somerset: Lord Mansfield and the Legitimacy of Slavery in the Anglo-American World *

At Westminster on June 22, 1772, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of King's Bench, the highest common law court in England, delivered a brief oral opinion in the case of Somerset v. Stewart.' James Somerset, a black alleged to be the runaway slave of Charles Stewart, had sought a writ of habeas corpus to prevent Stewart from seizing and detaining him in England for shipment to Jamaica to be sold. As reported by Capel Lofft, Mansfield held: