ABSTRACT
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. The "more" that Mansfield so enigmatically mentioned may have been only the value of slave property in England or it may have been the legitimacy of slavery itself. Somerset is a fascinating milestone in Anglo-American legal history for reasons other than its tantalizing obscurity and protean potential. It had a lasting impact on American conflict of law theory. To counter Sharp and Hargrave, the West India Interest procured publication of several pamphlets defending the legitimacy of slavery in England.
