Gallery Talk: "Parchment Slaves! Popular Constitutionalism and Radical Abolitionism," Friday, October 12, 4:15 pm

Radical American abolitionists who theorized about the relationship between the U.S. Constitution and slavery were constantly confronted with the reality of pro-slavery court decisions. Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science Helen Knowles will discuss the ways in which one such abolitionist, Lysander Spooner, responded to that reality. Drawing on the archival research for her current book project, she will explain how Spooner's 1840s obsession with proper (read anti-slavery) judicial interpretations of the text of the Constitution disappeared in the 1850s as he realized that the last best hope for the slaves lay not with the governors, but with the governed.