North of Slavery: The Matson Slave Trial, Presented by Samuel Wheeler

In 1845 Kentucky Robert Matson brought several enslaved people to Illinois, where he put them to work on his farm in Coles County. Two years later an enslaved woman named Jane Bryant fled the farm with her four children. Matson turned to the judicial system in Illinois, hiring attorney Abraham Lincoln to help him reclaim his human property. The ensuing freedom suit reveals the complexity of the institution of slavery, its implications for the “free state” of Illinois, and the role the institution played in the Civil War. The talk will examine the critical role the Illinois Supreme Court played in ensuring Illinois developed as a free state and explore why the future Great Emancipator was on the wrong side of history in this case.