The Closing Chapters of Celia, A Slave

Chapter 5 The Trial

Judge William Hall is chosen to preside over the trial and he chooses for Celia three up-and coming attorneys: Isaac Boulware, Nathan Kouns, and John Jameson. Boulwar and Kouns were young and relatively inexperienced, while Jameson had already had a political career and had returned to Calloway County to practice law. Hall chose three men with relatively neutral leanings on slavery, and what seems to be the best three choices to give Celia a fair defense. Jameson, the main voice of the defense, tried to get to the moral issue at the heart of the case that Celia, although a slave had a right to defend herself.

Chapter 6 The Verdict

Before the jury deliberates both the prosecution and defense get to request to the judge for specific instructions to be delivered to the jury to follow. The defense propose that a slave women like Celia has a right to protect herself from rape just like a white women. The norm in law at this time is that for a white man to rape a slave was only considered trespassing, so if that white man owned the slave their could not be trespassing charged because she was his property. Jameson and the defense wanted the jurors to view slave women as having the same rights of defense as white women. This instruction was not accepted by Judge Hall, so without this right of defense Celia's fate was almost guaranteed to be death. The jury decided that she would die by hanging.

Chapter 7 Final Disposition

Judge Hall had had refused on stay on Celia's execution so only an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court could possibly save her. To help give more time for the appeal Celia was "freed" from jail and only brought back after her first execution date had passed. The Supreme Court would eventually turn done the appeal hand Celia was hanged for the murder of Robert Newsom.

Chapter 8 Conclusions

We finally come to the end of this sad and disturbing tale. The issue of slave law in the South is touched upon, but the simple fact is, as McLaurin says "the codes were designed primarily to restrain the behavior of slaves, not their owners." The owners had virtually free-reign of their slaves which were their property. Some southerners did try to reform slavery in ways to make it more accepted to abolitionists and northerners but the power of the slaveholders would only be broken by a Civil War.

In my opinion this book does add to the story of slavery in the antebellum times in the several decades before the Civil War. Good scholarship was used but McLaurin seems to use too much conjecture. The last paragraph on page 89 demonstrates this perfectly. The whole paragraph is based on conjecture which cannot be evidenced either way. McLaurin says "Hall may well have considered the possibility that Jameson, though himself a slaveholder, as the father of two adolescent daughters might develop a certain amount of sympathy for Celia." He then says in the next sentence a statement that contradicts this statement. "Jameson's relationship to his daughters may have had no influence upon his attitude toward Celia." It just seemed like too much conjecture for a history work for me. Overall, the book was interesting and gave insight into slave life in Missouri.