History of the United States I / Unit 12 USH1 1676 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
State of Missouri v. Celia
The idea
Celia, enslaved in Missouri, killed her slaveholder in eighteen fifty-five after years of sexual assault. She was tried before an all-male White jury, because neither women nor enslaved people could serve on juries. She was convicted and her death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court.
In practice
A woman tried for defending herself before a jury from which every person like her was excluded by law.
Where people slip
This is a theme 10 entry sitting inside a theme 3 section, and it should be cross-tagged. The case is constitutional interpretation applied to a person legally defined as property. Celia could not claim self-defence, because the law did not recognise an assault on her as a crime against her. She could not be judged by peers, because she had none in law. The exam's constitutional band is not confined to famous cases about federal power, and this is what it looked like at the level of a single person.
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