Natural Law and the Antislavery Constitutional Tradition

Download or read book Natural Law and the Antislavery Constitutional Tradition written by Justin Buckley Dyer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-13 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural Law and the Antislavery Constitutional Tradition is a succinct account of the development of American antislavery constitutionalism in the years preceding the Civil War. In a series of case studies, Dyer reconstructs the arguments of prominent antislavery thinkers such as John Quincy Adams, John McLean, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass. What emerges is a convoluted understanding of American constitutional development that emphasizes the centrality of natural law to America's greatest constitutional crisis.