"Against the backdrop of the run-up to the Civil War, a young African American man in San Francisco in 1858 was freed from the claims of a white man who sought to return him to slavery in Mississippi. Archy Lee was the name of the man who, with the aid of anti-slavery lawyers and determined opponents of human bondage, won his freedom from the claims of Charles Stovall. With the aid of pro-slavery lawyers and equally determined supporters, Stovall...