On this episode of Our American Stories, Nathaniel Gordon of Portland, Maine, holds the distinction of being the only American ever executed for the crime of slave trading. Although many were caught in the act, sentences were often lenient, and most slave traders believed they had little to fear until Abraham Lincoln.

Jonathan W. White, a regular contributor on Our American Stories, a fellow at the Jack Miller Center, and the author of Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade, shares the story of the man Lincoln refused to pardon and explains why. Special thanks to the U.S. National Archives for this audio, taken from an online lecture Dr. White gave.

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