Recently today, my FYS Seminar Class: Talking about Freedom, held a mock trial for the 1829 court case of State vs. Mann. The case was about woman named Elizabeth Jones who allowed for a man named John Mann to rent her slave, Lydia. One day, Lydia disobeyed Mann, and in turn, Mann shot and wounded Lydia ( The lower court then decided to charge Mann a five dollar fine for the violent act committed against the slave (other facts about the case can be found here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_v._Mann) However, Mann appealed the decision to the North Carolina Supreme Court arguing that he should not be held responsible for paying the fine. The case to me was a matter of principal rather than about the monetary aspect.
The class was split into two teams: Team Erica (Coleman, Tyler, Mike and myself) to argue in favor of Mr. Mann vs. Team Nido (Katie, Brighid, and Randy) to argue that Mr. Mann should in fact have to pay the fine. At first, I found it rather difficult to formulate my arguments for this case, because I was essentially arguing in favor of slavery, something that I believe to be one of the most cruel and horrible chapters in history. However, when formulating my arguments I had to try my best to forget my own personal biases and feelings on the subject; it took a bit of time to remove the presentism from my mind and instead get into the mindset of a slave owner in the 1800's but it had to be done in order to at least make successful points. After extensive research and a slight bit of frustration our arguments emerged as the following:
I. Slavery is ordained in heaven, therefore the act is not illegal.
II. The master isn't liable for the indictment of battery and assault committed; technically, Lydia was given to Mr. Mann by Mrs. Jones, therefore she was in his care.
III. Slavery itself should not be illegal due to the great impact it has on the national economy.
IV. Slaves aren't considered “human” by law
My personal argument was Argument III; the main point I sought to argue was that slavery was in fact crucial for the US economy at the time, and owners needed to do anything in their power in order to maintain their revenue generating plantations. It sounds harsh I know....But I had to make the argument anyways. This perhaps is one of the things I find to be most difficult about the field of law. How does one argue for something that he or she knows is morally incorrect? This is a concept I still grapple with, but after completing this case I believe that the way in which one argues something he or she doesn't believe in is through cold, hard facts.
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