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Patricia Reid’s “Margaret Morgan’s Story” challenged me to think about aspects of slavery among border states that I had previously never given thought. Her juxtaposition of the concepts of slavery and freedom within the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania ultimately led to a thorough examination of the legitimacy of freedom for African Americans in the early- to mid-nineteenth century. This analysis was supported in large part by Reid’s excellent critique on the personal liberty laws passed in Pennsylvania in 1826. While Reid explains the initial, benevolent intentions of the laws, she proceeds to reveal their myriad weaknesses in protecting African Americans. When compared to the personal liberty laws of New York or Massachusetts, the laws of Pennsylvania had no effect in changing the political voice or power of African Americans – if accused of being a fugitive slave, African Americans were not even provided a jury trial (369). If anything, Reid effectively emphasizes that the political stance of free African Americans was weakened by placing the jurisdiction of their trials into the hands of elite white slaveholders. For many African Americans, freedom was entangled in a convoluted system of unfreedom.
Continuing her mockery of personal liberty laws in border states, Reid highlights the proceedings of the Prigg v. Pennsylvania trial of 1842. When the issue of these laws were taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, the status of Margaret Morgan and her children – previously free African Americans who had been accused of being fugitive slaves, kidnapped, and then sold into slavery in the South – was never addressed, although state laws of both Maryland and Pennsylvania dictated that they were free (373). In depicting the proceedings of the trial, Reid demonstrates that the personal liberty laws of Pennsylvania were wholly ineffective. In this light she also reveals the lack of importance placed on African American issues by the white elite in the nineteenth century – equal treatment towards free African Americans was a non-issue because in the minds of many blacks were not, and would never be, equals. Reid uses the example of the Pennsylvania personal liberty laws as a kind of satire for the entire system by which African Americans were to be protected against injustice. Collectively, I think this writing contributes greatly to supporting her overarching thesis of a growth of “pro-slavery constitutionalism” throughout the middle of the nineteenth century (360)
While Reid’s criticism of personal liberty laws is both detailed and insightful, the first half of her work dilutes her argument. In trying to establish the legal framework for the unfortunate events of the Morgan family and the subsequent Prigg trial, Reid provides readers with a background that is largely excessive. I think Reid could have made a much more powerful argument had she spent more time emphasizing the opinions and perspectives of those directly affected by the liberty laws, freed African Americans. With this in mind, I think the questions presented by Henry and Ian are very important. These questions underscore Reid’s lack of layman perspective in her work. What did the populace think about freed slaves? How did African Americans view personal liberty laws? Reid’s use of quotes from both a freed African American and Frederick Douglass were critical in establishing the black perspective in her argument, but the paucity with which they were used left me wanting more depth in this portion of her analysis (370, 365). Despite her missed opportunities, Reid is still able to clearly articulate that manumission did not imply freedom, and freedom in no means implied equality for African Americans in the nineteenth century.