Quotes from Jonathan Daniel Wells

Wells argued that, in fact, jury trials in fugitive cases were unconstitutional because they placed a barrier between a slaveholder and his slave property.

Justice Josiah Hoffman wrote the opinion for the supreme court, an opinion that proved every bit as favorable to the South as Riker, Wells, and others had hoped. The court declared that the requirement of a jury trial violated the US Constitution because "the legal rights of the Southern Slaveholder are so clearly defined, as at once to mark him, who in any way impede their exercise, as a violator of the public space.