The Bondsman's Burden: An Economic Analysis of the Common Law of Southern Slavery

ISBN-13: 9780521592383 / Angielski / Twarda / 1997 / 292 str.

Jenny Bourne Wahl; Christopher L. Tomlins

Opis

Were slaves property or human beings under the law? Antebellum Southern judges designed efficient laws that protected property rights and helped slavery remain economically viable, laws that sheltered the persons embodied by that propertySH-the slaves themselves. Unintentionally, these judges generated rules applicable to ordinary Americans. Wahl provides a rigorous, compelling economic analysis of the common law of Southern slavery, inspecting thousands of legal disputes.

Recenzje

"Wahl has written an important book. She has reviewed an enormous number of appellate cases and has suggest that was a difference between rules relating to slaves and other persons. Her evidence implies that southern law, because of slavery, was affected by economic values, one of which was that slave property should receive special protection." Law & History Review Fall 01

Spis treści

1. American slavery and the path of the law; 2. The law of sales: slaves, animals, and commodities; 3. The law of hiring and employment: slaves, animals, and free persons; 4. The law regarding common carriers: slaves, animals, commodities, and free persons; 5. The law regarding governments, government officials, slave patrollers, and overseers: protecting private property versus keeping public peace; 6. The legal rights and responsibilities of strangers toward slaves, animals, and free persons; 7. Treatment of one's slaves, servants, animals, and relatives: legal boundaries and the problem of social cost; 8. The south's law of slavery: reflecting the felt necessities of the time.