Chief Justice Robinson's Legal Opinion on Extraditing Fugitive Slaves Back to the United States

In his original despatch to the British government the lieutenant governor had included a legal opinion from the chief justice of the province, John Beverley Robinson. Bond Head's request for a separate legal opinion indicated how seriously he and his government took the larger question of policy on slave extradition and the applicability of the Fugitive Offenders Act in cases of fugitive slaves. Robinson was not at all impressed with the humanitarian arguments advanced by the African Canadian community and their supporters. He was willing to admit that slavery 'politically considered is a great evil' and 'morally wrong,' but he could not countenance admitting slaves into Upper Canada who had murdered their masters, burned their masters' houses, or stolen their masters' goods. Robinson believed in reciprocity with the United States when it came to extradition. If Upper Canada held itself out 'as a place of refuge for atrocious criminals from other Countries,' it could 'expect consequences fatal to its own security and independence.' Robinson was opposed both legally and morally to such a position, and his strongly argued opinion left no doubt whatever of his stand on slave extradition.

--David Murray, Colonial Justice: Justice, Morality, and Crime in the Niagara District, 1791-1849, Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (2002; repr., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 202.