In 1867, an 8-year-old girl named Elizabeth Turner became the epicenter of a legal battle that would help define what freedom really meant after the Civil War. Days after Maryland abolished slavery, her former enslaver had her re-indentured under a sham "apprenticeship" law used to seize Black children. Elizabeth’s mother—and thousands of other parents—refused to accept it.&nbsp;In this second episode of <a href="https://slate.com/bythepeople" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">By the People</a>, legal scholar <a href="https://law.umn.edu/news/2026-03-26-minnesota-law-welcomes-lyle-cherneff-visiting-assistant-professor-law-fall-2026" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Lyle Cherneff</a> guides Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern through a Union Army general's archive of letters that documented the plight of Black parents who petitioned, marched, and filed habeas corpus claims to win their children back. These parents read the new constitutional guarantees of freedom for themselves, and demanded they be enforced, long before any Supreme Court told them what those words meant.The resulting case, <a href="https://yalelawjournal.org/note/remembering-in-re-turner-popular-constitutionalism-in-the-reconstruction-era" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">In re: Turner</a>, helped end the practice of racialized child "apprenticeship" and shaped the meaning of the 13th and 14th amendments. But the parents who fought for it were nearly written out of the story. In this episode, we seek to restore that record, tracing a direct line from their fight to ordinary Americans’ resistance to ICE raids today.&nbsp;&nbsp;By the People is Slate’s end-of-term project exploring how ordinary Americans have shaped the meaning of the Constitution outside the Supreme Court. You can read the full package of articles accompanying this series at <a href="http://slate.com/bythepeople" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">slate.com/bythepeople</a>The justices publish their opinions a few dozen times a year. Dahlia and Mark share theirs every week. Slate Plus gets you all of it: Amicus ad-free with a weekly bonus segment, and no paywalls anywhere on Slate. Join now. Visit <a href="https://slate.com/podcast-plus?utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=plus_pod&utm_content=Amicus&utm_source=show_summary" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">slate.com/amicusplus</a> to get access wherever you listen.You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/amicus-with-dahlia-lithwick-law-justice-and-the-courts/id928790786" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7DpL32jgjwBTah8o9HQkBl" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Spotify</a>.&nbsp; Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our <a href="https://slate.com/podcastfaqs#plusbenefits" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">FAQ</a> at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

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