Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860

Download or read book Southern Slavery and the Law, 1619-1860 written by Thomas D. Morris and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Specifically, Morris demonstrates that there was no coherent body of law that dealt solely with slaves. Instead, more general legal rules concerning inheritance, mortgages, and transfers of property coexisted with laws pertaining only to slaves. According to Morris, southern lawmakers and judges struggled to reconcile a social order based on slavery with existing English common law (or, in Louisiana, with continental civil law). Because much was left to local.