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Book Review
| M. Ruth Kelly, The Olmsted Case: Privateers, Property, and Politics in Pennsylvania, 1778–1810, Selinsgrove, Pa.: Susquehanna University Press, 2005. Pp. 173. $39.50 (ISBN 1-57591-092-6).
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| In The Olmsted Case, M. Ruth Kelly has lifted up the fascinating story revolving around Gideon Olmsted's claim to the cargo of a captured ship during the Revolutionary war. The case neither ended swiftly nor neatly, for it was complicated by personal politics, conflicts over federalism, and a significant amount of money. While this case is not unknown—Justice John Marshall uses it as precedent in McCulloch v. Maryland—it is hardly studied. Kelly successfully argues that it ought to be for it sheds light on a turbulent period in American legal and political history. |
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Gideon Olmsted, a determined and ambitious man from Connecticut, joined a local militia during the American Revolution, then worked toward becoming a captain of his own sloop, the Seaflower, and aided the patriot cause by procuring supplies from the West Indies. The Seaflower, however, was captured and Olmsted found himself and his crew traversing around the Atlantic as a laborer and prisoner of the British. As a sailor on the British sloop the Active, he was able to turn the tables and commandeer the ship. He began sailing it toward Egg Harbor, New Jersey to establish and claim the ship and its cargo as a prize. Before it could dock, the ship was stopped and captured by the Pennsylvania Navy who then claimed the substantial prize of the ship despite the fact that an American captained it. |
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Since both the state of Pennsylvania and Olmsted and his men claimed the prize, a dispute arose. Both parties were resolute and determined to claim the prize for it amounted to a significant amount of money and a significant principal. The road that the case took was long and meandering, since neither side would back down. Several factors played into the ability of both sides to stretch this case out for decades. Consistently, if not in all instances, Pennsylvania courts found in favor of their own state. Olmsted, however, was able to appeal successfully to the Federal courts. One major complication that Olmsted encountered were laws passed by Pennsylvania that prevented non-juried courts from overturning jury decisions. On the basis of such laws, Pennsylvania obstinately refused to recognize the Federal court decisions and pay Olmsted. |
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The other important factor in this case was personal politics. As the case matured, it became a pawn in intra-party Republican squabbles between supporters of nationalists William Duane and Michael Lieb and the supporters of state's rights champion Simon Snyder. It is this story of political infighting that drew Kelly to the case. |
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Kelly notes that Pennsylvanians were more divided about the perceived power of the new United States Constitution than commonly recognized, voicing concerns that were echoed in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. But Kelly also suggests that, at least in Pennsylvania, personal politics trumped both urban/rural divisions and federalism. |
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The dispute between Pennsylvania and the Federal government reached the point where the Pennsylvania militia battled government officials on the streets of Philadelphia. One of the best parts of the book is the careful and clearly organized analysis of the trial of General Michael Bright, the militia leader who challenged Federal authorities. |
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In the end, Olmstead got his money, the Federal courts proved their dominance over state courts, and ironically, the states rights' champion Simon Snyder remained at the top of Pennsylvania's political world. Paradoxically, but astutely, Kelly concludes that Olmsted's eventual legal victory for the United States was a brief political success for states' rights politicians. The book concludes with a particularly interesting discussion of Pennsylvania's effort to amend the Constitution to more "impartially" deal with conflicts between the Federal and state governments. |
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Kelly has successfully demonstrated the potential of the Olmsted case to illuminate so many subjects including the nature of local and state politics, the debates over Federal and state sovereignty, and the world of privateering. Kelly's book, in the end however, falls a little short of being able to capture all of these myriad aspects in a comprehensive and clear way. To begin with, the book is curiously arranged. The introduction does little to introduce the thesis of the book and instead introduces the Supreme Court decision that appears only in passing in the body of the book. More significantly, there are some important questions that remain unanswered about the key issues of jurisdiction, the Eleventh Amendment, and the Pennsylvania laws that nullified Federal decisions. Moreover, United States v. Peters (1809), which reached the Supreme Court, receives far too little attention. Despite these shortcomings, historians of early American law will be grateful for having this first book-length investigation of such an important and illuminating case. |
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| Emily Blanck
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| Rowan University |
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