"A fascinating and riveting account.... Baker does a masterful job of detailing the events." (American Historical Review) "H. Robert Baker's book does an excellent job discussing the case's legal and constitutional aspects. He sees the case as the last gasp of a populist antebellum constitutionalism, where the people, not the Supreme Court, are the ultimate arbiters of the constitutionality of the laws." (Civil War History) "(A)n exemplary case study of the events leading up to the undeservedly obscure Supreme Court decision in Ableman v. Booth (1859).... Baker lays out the complex legal proceedings with admirable clarity." (The Journal of American History) "The Rescue of Joshua Glover is part of a new approach to constitutional history that examines legal texts with sensitivity to the context in which they were created and debated.... Baker's complex and compelling book is about legal ramifications of the rescue of Joshua Glover more than it is about the man himself." (The Annals of Iowa) "The little-known story of Joshua Glover has all the earmarks of a dramatic tale of freedom.... The key battlefield in this pre-Civil War struggle over state's rights and the Constitution is the courtroom." (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) "Ableman v. Booth finally gets its due in this illuminating study. A must-read for anyone interested in the impact of slavery on the development of the American constitutional system." (author of Civil Rights, the Constitution, and Congress, 1863-1869) "The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave, the Constitution, and the Coming of the Civil War is an important new examination of how American constitutional law and popular culture intersected in the antebellum era.... A valuable case study of the ways in which the Constitution was reshaped outside of the courts as well as inside of them." (author of The Limits of Sovereignty)
