Natural Law and the Antislavery Constitutional Tradition - Dyer, Justin Buckley (University of Missouri, Columbia)

In a series of case studies, Dyer reconstructs the arguments of prominent antislavery thinkers such as John Quincy Adams, John McLean, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. What emerges is a convoluted understanding of American constitutional development that emphasizes the centrality of natural law to America's greatest constitutional crisis.