Margaret Garner: Historical Overview

In its own time, the case of Margaret Garner was among the most significant and controversial of all antebellum fugitive slave stories. Margaret Garner's family was the "property" of a Kentucky plantation owner. Margaret's love for her husband and children fueled her ongoing fight for survival as she endured unimaginable abuse and hardship.

One winter night, Margaret and her family joined an escape party and crossed the frozen river to find freedom in Ohio. Their hiding place was soon discovered and surrounded by pursuers. Margaret declared she would kill herself and her children before she would return to slavery. As her husband was overpowered and dragged from the shelter, Margaret seized a knife from the table and killed her daughter. She then attempted to take the life of her other children and to kill herself, but she was captured and jailed before she could complete her desperate work. The trial resulted in a major legal debate about whether she should be charged with murder or "destruction of property." Margaret Garner was found guilty of "destruction of property" and was remanded back to slavery.

The Garner trial addressed crucial issues in constitutional law and posed key questions at the core of the rift in the Union. To abolitionists, the case decisively illustrated the pathology of slavery. The events leading up to and including the ultimate act of infanticide were endemic, they proclaimed, of slavery's tragic heroism. However, on the other side, Margaret's actions served only to underline the subhuman nature of all slaves and their absolute need for indenture.

Debate concerning the constitutionality of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, demanding that citizens assent to and assist in the capture of fugitive Blacks, was integral to the case. Also relevant were the all-important states' rights issues, which in the Garner case pitted a charge of murder in Ohio, a "free" state, against a mere "destruction of property" suit in Kentucky. The latter issue was hotly contested at the time in the courts of public opinion, and both sides saw in their differences nothing short of the simmering roots of civil war.

- Norman D. Ryan