TÄTE IAVERY TATUTES - ProQuest

etween sixteen and fifty work on the town roads for ten days of each year.
Whites were also required to work on the town roads, but their obligation did
not begin until they turned eighteen and it ended when they were forty-five. 12
The city of Montgomery, incorporated the same year, was given more general
powers. Perhaps the legislature felt that a city of that size did not need such
explicit instructions on how to control blacks. However, this act did provide
special taxes for slaves and free Negroes, and a special provision for patrols.
Unlike a town, the citizens of the city of Montgomery were not expected to
work on roads, and therefore the act made no provision for slave road work
either. 13
The 1837 Alabama legislature also passed a number of private acts, to com-
pensate masters whose slaves were executed, to provide for the sale by court
order of certain slaves in the town of Courtland, to alter the patrol laws of
Jefferson County, to confirm the manumission of a slave named Babb, to pay
sheriffs for executing various slaves, and to pay a lawyer for prosecuting a
slave. 14 A lengthy joint resolution urged the annexation of Texas, in part so
"many of the enslaved, but worthy and magnanimous sons of Ireland, of France
and of Poland" might be able to move to the United States. 15
The many Alabama acts of 1837 dealing with slavery illustrate a common
theme of southern legal history. Southern legislatures were constantly busy
tinkering with existing slave codes, enacting new laws, and applying the laws
of slavery to new circumstances. This should not surprise us. Next to real estate,
slaves were the most valuable form of property in the South. But, unlike real
estate, slaves were, as Kenneth Stampp once noted, "a troublesome proper-
ty," 16 which required constant attention and réévaluation.
The statutes in this collection allow scholars to see how the South crafted,
and recrafted, legislation to control its peculiar institution. The laws adopted
by a democratically elected legislature reveal much about the society that it
governs. The laws in this collection show that slavery was often on the mind
of southerners and that they were seldom satisfied with the laws and controls
they had. Some of these laws are responses to particular events•such as the
attempted slave revolt of Denmark Vesey in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822
and the bloody Nat Turner rebellion of 1831 in Virginia. Other laws respond
to more general developments in society. Laws prohibiting the circulation of
abolitionist papers, for example, are in direct response to the growth of the
antislavery movement of the 1830s.
Most of this legislation is neither dramatic nor politically motivated. It
responds to the day-to-day needs of a slave society. Far more than court deci-
sions, this legislation reflects how citizens of the South viewed their world,
and what their goals were. Reported court decision, after all, are based on
unusual events•crimes or civil suits; trials and appeals. Most cases are not
appealed. Thus, by their very nature appellate decisions are not necessarily
representative of the experiences and events in a society. Judicial opinions are
an important measure of a society. But, the courts cannot take the initiative.
Reading the opinions of the Virginia Court of Appeals would never allow us
to see how important manumission was to the state. There are a few very im-
portant cases on the subject, scattered over a sixty year period. But, there are
numerous statutes and special private acts emancipating slaves and allowing
State Slavery Statutes xi