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SOMERSETT’S CASE Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

A celebrated decision of the English king’s bench, in 1771, (20 IIow. St. Tr. 1.) that slavery no longer existed in England in any form, and could not for the future exist on English soil, and that any person brought into England as a slave could not be thence removed except by the legal means applicable in the case of any free-born person.

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