Melton McLaurin's book Celia, A Slave is the account of the trial, conviction, and execution of a slave for the murder of her "master" Robert Newsom in 1855. The author uses evidence gathered through the study of records from Callaway County, Missouri and the surrounding area during the mid-nineteenth century. While much of what can be discovered about this event is mere speculation, McLaurin offers arguments for the different reasons that contribute to the way many of the events unfold. Now throughout the book the "main characters", namely Celia, her lawyer Jameson, and Judge William Hall, are all faced with moral decisions that affect the lives of two different people. The first of the main characters to be introduced is Celia's teacher. , Robert Newsom. Mr. Newsom was a wealthy landowner in Callaway County. In 1850, after his wife's death, Robert Newsom purchased a fourteen-year-old slave from nearby Audrain County. Now, as far as McLaurin can tell, Newsom purchased Celia for no other reason than a sexual commodity. The night Newsom purchased Celia was “upon his return to Callaway County, Newsom raped Celia, and by that act immediately established and defined the nature of the relationship…” (McLaurin 24). From the moment Newsom first acquires Celia, he begins raping her regularly. Although it was generally accepted as morally wrong for a slave master to sexually abuse a slave, Robert Newsom appears to view her as his property, to do with as he pleased rather than as a human being. McLaurin states that "...Celia's rape by her new master would have been a psychologically devastating experience, having a profound effect on her" (25). Even if the “u... middle of paper……son of Celia's case. Hall's decision on Jameson was right although McLaurin wrote "...Jameson may not be among the sharpest intellects in the body or its most diligent student of the legislative process" (84), now one might say that Hall knew this of Jameson in advance, but chose Jameson anyway to give some validity to the process. Once the trial began, Hall began to bury the defense's arguments by allowing "no reference to alleged threats to Celia's life..." (McLaurin 106) and even while the jury was deliberating, Hall "openly addressed the prosecution ... and gave the jury every instruction requested by the prosecution” (McLaurin 110). Hall clearly never intended to give Celia a fair trial, even if only in appearance, which would have benefited him during his re-election and perhaps it would have stopped the war that was brewing between Missouri and Kansas..