Talk:Edward Coke
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[edit] Coke the Slave Man?
I have been attempting to do some research on Coke and in reading this entry I am a bit incredulous of the supposed 'even-handedness' of this article. Most of the entry talks about his work in institutionalizing slavery, yet his legacy consists of a great deal more than his dubious opinion of slavery. The article's focus on the negative points while hardly touching on his positive contributions goes against the wiki's "neutral point of view". I am a bit disappointed by the quality of the article, as it neglects to mention most facts covered in all other encyclopedic entries for Coke and seems to purvey a negative message of Coke the villain.
Less negative articles in other places paint him as one of the original fighters for the supremacy of Common Law over Royal rule. His career is more summarized by heated political battles with King James and his arch-rival Francis Bacon among other prominent people of the era over issues of law.
I am not adding anything to the entry myself at this point since I have not done much reading on Coke and would hope to differ this work to someone with legal knowledge and better familiarity with the subject.
Dostal 02:53, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I agreed with this post, and I have removed this text:
"As director [of the London Company], he proposed a means by which slavery could be legalised in the new Virginia Colony. Fearing opposition if the issue was publicly debated, Coke was responsible for Calvin's Case in 1608(In this way Coke played a significant part in the development of New World slavery. On January 2, 2003, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom refused to make a public apology for the long history of slavery under the British Empire on the basis that it was legal at the time. Writing via assistant private secretary Kay Brock, she said 'Under the statute of the International Criminal Court, acts of enslavement committed today . . . constitute a crime against humanity. But the historic slave trade was not a crime against humanity or contrary to international law at the time when the UK government condoned it.'"
These controversial assertions do not accord with the record. Calvin's Case was the result of a national debate over the legal significance of James VI's accession to the throne of England. Slavery was of no issue to it and not mentioned by in the opinion. Slavery was indeed legal at that time in England as in other European states, but it was utterly uncontroversial, and Coke had no reason to defend it, or even to mention it.]
Steve Sheppard
On the contrary if you take the trouble to look through the recordss of the meetings of the London Virginia Company, you will see that this whole issue very germaine. See also The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourse of Conquest by Robert A. Williams, Jr. (Oxford University Press, 1990). Slavery was very much an issue then, particularly in relation to anti-catholic/anti-spanish propoganda and the attempt to gain credibility for a notion of protestant moral superiority.Harrypotter 17:59, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
- Please provide a source for your claim about the London Company (are the records you speak of online?). As for Calvin's Case, in what way does it "play a significant part in the development of New World slavery". I would have thought that the principle of Jus soli articulated in this case would have had the opposite effect.--JW1805 18:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
- I have consulted a range of material including contemporary pamphlets of the early 17th century located in the British Museum. In 1957, during the 350 anniversary of the founding of Virginia a lot of the records were republished as well. I haven't got all the references to hand, but I think it was in the 1970's or 1980's that a text by Nicholas Ferrer produced the interesting information that the first people used as slaves were Poles (Prior to the development of the Atlantic slave trade, one of the main slave trade routes was in Eastern Europe, and indeed the word slave is derived from Slav.) The LVC minutes make things quiote clear what the thinking was, and Coke differentiated between tenporary and eternal enemies. Carl Schmitt, the Nazi jurisprude, also came up with similar ideas. .Harrypotter
