H. Robert Baker articulates the many ways in which the case of fugitive slave Joshua Glover evoked powerful emotions in America in the years leading up to the Civil War. On March 11, 1854, the people of Wisconsin prevented federal government agents from carrying away the fugitive slave, Joshua Glover. Assembling outside the Milwaukee courthouse, the crowd demanded that the federal officers respect Glover's civil liberties as they would those of any other citizen. When the officers refused, the protesters rescued Glover. The government brought his rescuers to trial, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court intervened and took the bold step of ruling the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional. *The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave, the Constitution, and the Coming of the Civil War* delves into the courtroom trials and political battles precipitated by Glover's rescue in Wisconsin on the eve of the Civil War.
