First published in September 1992, the book traces the nature
and development of the fundamental legal relationships among
slaves, masters, and third parties. It shows how the colonial and
antebellum Southern judges and legislators accommodated slavery's
social relationships into the common law, and how slave law evolved
in different states over time in response to social political,
economic, and intellectual developments.
The book states that the law of slavery in the US South treated
slaves both as people and property. It reconciles this apparent
contradiction by demonstrating that slaves were defined in the law
as items of human property without any legal rights. When the
lawmakers recognized slaves as people, they burdened slaves with
added legal duties and disabilities. This epitomized in legal terms
slavery's oppressive social relationships. The book also
illustrates how cases in which the lawmakers recognized slaves as
people legitimized slavery's inhumanity. References in the law to
the legal humanity of people held as slaves are shown to be
rhetorical devices and cruel ironies that regulated the relative
rights of the slaves? owners and other free people that were
embodied in people held as slaves. Thus, it is argued that it never
makes sense to think of slave legal rights. This was so even when
the lawmakers regulated the individual masters? rights to treat
their slaves as they wished. These regulations advanced policies
that the lawmakers perceived to be in the public interest within
the context of a slave society.
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