The legal scholar Robert Cover suggests in the preface to his book, Justice Accused: Antislavery and the Judicial Process, that Captain Vere may have been modeled after Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Lemuel Shaw, Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Levy's first book was a revision and expansion of his doctoral dissertation on Lemuel Shaw, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
Many of the proprietors of the library were chief justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, including Theophilus Parsons, Lemuel Shaw, Horace Gray, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr..
George Bernard Shaw | Artie Shaw | Sandie Shaw | William Shaw | Shaw | Martin Shaw | Robert Gould Shaw | Shaw Festival | Scott Shaw | Irwin Shaw | Fiona Shaw | Shaw's | Shaw Media | John Shaw | Jim Shaw (artist) | Jim Shaw | Clay Shaw | Buck Shaw | Bernard Shaw | Virgil Shaw | Shaw Taylor | Shaw Air Force Base | Lorraine Shaw | Lemuel Shaw | Greg Shaw | David E. Shaw | Charles "Bobo" Shaw | Brian Shaw | Barclay Shaw | Tommy Shaw |