Somerset v Stewart
Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499 (also known as Sommersett v Steuart, Somersett's case, and the Mansfield Judgment) is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of a slave on English soil not to be forcibly removed from the country and sent to Jamaica for sale. According to one reported version of the case, Lord Mansfield decided that: The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory.