TÄTE IAVERY TATUTES - ProQuest

freed slaves to remain in the state. Taken together they tell us much about the
tension in Virginia between those who wanted to free their slaves, and thought
they had a right to control their property as they wished, and those who thought
the growth of a free black population was dangerous for the society. These
acts are only available through a careful search of the annual statutes.
Similarly, the appellate court opinions in South Carolina tell us little about
the reaction to Denmark Vesey, William Lloyd Garrison and the antislavery
movement, or the growing hostility in the North to the return of fugitive slaves.
The laws and resolutions of South Carolina tell us much about all these things.
Finally, the appellate court opinions•which are usually the meat and
potatoes of legal history•tell us little about the day- to-day regulation of slavery
and slaves. For persons interested in how law works at the local level, the place
to begin is with the statutes. For social historians, interested in the impact of
culture on law, and vice versa, the statutes are an invaluable source. Hopefully,
this collection, the assemblage of which has taken six years, will lead to new
scholarship in fields such as legal history, slavery, and antebellum culture.
NOTES
1. The literature on this subject is extensive. The more important volumes on
this period include: Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom
(New York, 1975), Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black (Chapel Hill, 1968);
David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca, 1966);
and Peter Wood, Black Majority (New York, 1974). For a comparative approach,
see Carl Deglar, Neither Black nor White (New York, 1971).
2. Most of the important statutory and case law leading to slavery in Virginia
is reprinted in Paul Finkelman, The Law of Freedom and Bondage (New York:
1985), Chap. 1.
3. See generally, Arthur Zilversmit, The.First Emancipation (Chicago: 1970).
4. The literature on slavery and the revolution is also voluminous. Two par-
ticularly useful books are David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the
Age of Revolution (Ithaca: 1975) and Donald Robinson, Slavery in the Struc-
ture of American Politics, 1765-1820 (New York, 1971).
5. John Hope Franklin and Alfred Moss, From Slavery to Freedom 6th ed.
(New York: 1988) 64-95.
6. Georgia Acts, 1850, 86-90.
7. Ibid., 181.
8. Ibid., 122-23.
xii State Slavery Statutes