Slavery & the law / edited by Paul Finkelman.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Finkelman, Paul, 1949-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Slavery--Law and legislation--United States--History.

Slavery.

Slavery--Law and legislation.

History.

United States.

Slavery--Law and legislation--History.

Physical Description:

viii, 464 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Slavery and the law

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : Madison House, 1996.

Summary:

Central to the development of the American legal system, writes Professor Finkelman in Slavery and the Law, is the institution of slavery. It informs us not only about early concepts of race and property, but about the nature of American democracy itself.

Prominent historians and legal scholars analyze the intricate relationship between slavery, race, and the law from the earliest Slave Codes in colonial America to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision before the Civil War. These wide-ranging essays focus on comparative slave law, the slave trade, rules of evidence, and property fights, as well as issues of criminality, punishment, and constitutional law.

Contributors include Derrick Bell, William W. Fisher III, Sanford Levinson, James Oliver Horton, Lois Horton, Michael Kent Curtis, Thomas D. Morris, Judith Kelleher Schafer, Ariela Gross, Thomas D. Russell, Alan Watson, Jonathan A. Bush, and Jacob I. Corre.

Contents:

Introduction: The Centrality of Slavery in American Legal Development / Paul Finkelman 3

Part I Theories of Democracy and the Law of Slavery 27

1 Learning the Three "I"s of America's Slave Heritage / Derrick Bell 29

2 Ideology and Imagery in the Law of Slavery / William W. Fisher III 43

Part II Constitutional Law and Slavery 87

3 Slavery in the Canon of Constitutional Law / Sanford Levinson 89

4 Chief Justice Hornblower of New Jersey and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 / Paul Finkelman 113

5 A Federal Assault: African-Americans and the Impact of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 / James Oliver Horton, Lois E. Horton 143

6 The Crisis Over The Impending Crisis: Free Speech, Slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment / Michael Kent Curtis 161

Part III Criminal and Civil Law of Slavery 207

7 Slaves and the Rules of Evidence in Criminal Trials / Thomas D. Morris 209

8 "Details are of a Most Revolting Character": Cruelty to Slaves as Seen in Appeals to the Supreme Court of Louisiana / Judith Kelleher Schafer 241

The Unreported Case of Humphreys v. Utz 269

9 Pandora's Box: Slave Character on Trial in the Antebellum Deep South / Ariela Gross 291

10 Slave Auctions on the Courthouse Steps: Court Sales of Slaves in Antebellum South Carolina / Thomas D. Russell 329

Part IV Comparative Law and Slavery 365

11 Seventeenth-Century Jurists, Roman Law, and Slavery / Alan Watson 367

12 The British Constitution and the Creation of American Slavery / Jonathan A. Bush 379

13 Thinking Property at Rome / Alan Watson 419

14 Thinking Property at Memphis: An Application of Watson / Jacob I. Corre 437.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0945612362

OCLC:

34730644