Decision
The decision was a major victory for the abolitionists in the state who had organized to ban slavery only seventeen years earlier. The result was that not just Polly but also all other slaves, including those held prior to Indiana statehood, were freed. There was some anger among the slaveholding community and violence was threatened against Osborn and Kinney, but no action was taken against them. The case also led to the impeachment of the Clark County Justice of the Peace for aiding slaveholders who refused to free their slaves. Many slaveholders, not wanting to lose their valuable slaves, left the state before their slaves could be taken from them.
The 1820 US census revealed that there were 190 slaves in Indiana and 1,200 free blacks, many of whom had been freed by the decision. The number of slaves dropped off dramatically and there were only three slaves in the state in both the 1830 and 1840 censuses.
Read more about this topic: Polly V. Lasselle
Famous quotes containing the word decision:
“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,—that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses the available candidate,—who is invariably the devil,—and what right have his constituents to be surprised, because the devil does not behave like an angel of light? What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity,—who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The decision to have a child is both a private and a public decision, for children are our collective future.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)