t Key laws of slavery
Slave law: the Mann rule moderated Jacob v. State – Tennessee, 1842 (22 Tenn. 493); Craig’s Administrator v. Lee – Kentucky, 1853 (53 Ky. 119); James v. Carper – Tennessee, 1857 (36 Tenn. 357)
Slave law: The tide turns against slaves in “sojourn” cases Graham v. Strader – Kentucky, 1844 (44 Ky. 173), dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, 51 U.S. 82 (1850); Collins v. America – Kentucky, 1849 (48 Ky. 565); Scott v. Emerson – Missouri, 1852 (15 Mo. 576), affirmed, 60 U.S. 393 (1857)
"Times are not now as they were when the former decisions on this subject were made. Since then … States have been possessed with a dark and fell spirit in relation to slavery, whose gratification is sought in the pursuit of measures whose inevitable consequences must be the overthrow and destruction of our government.” – Justice John Scott, in Scott "[No] citizen of Missouri, who removes with his slaves to Illinois, [has] a right to complain that the fundamental law of the State to which he removes, and in which he makes his residence, dissolves the relation between him and his slave. It is as much his own voluntary act, as if he had executed a deed of emancipation.” – Justice Hamilton Gamble (dissenting), in Scott Slave law: Problems of manumission Fisher’s Negroes v. Dabbs – Tennessee, 1834 (14 Tenn. 119); Charlotte v. Chouteau – Missouri, 1847 (11 Mo. 193); City of Memphis v. Winfield – Tennessee, 1848 (27 Tenn. 707); Ewell v. Tidwell – Arkansas, 1859 (20 Ark. 136)
| ![]() Dred Scott (1857) - courtesy Wikimedia Commons ![]() Slave cabin, Maden Hall, Greeneville, Tennessee - courtesy Brian Stansberry and Wikimedia Commons “[T]he authority of government and chastisement must necessarily belong to the master; yet the constitution and laws of this state … furnish some protection to the slave, and regard him as a human being, and as such, the owner … cannot kill or maim his slave.” - Chief Justice Elijah Hise, in Lee “To deny the owner’s right [to prosecute one who hires his slave for unreasonable punishment of the slave] would be justly esteemed a reproach to humanity in any condition of civil society above the level of barbarism … [and is] untenable upon any just principles.” - Justice Robert McKinney, in James “[I]n consenting to the visit or sojourn of his slave in Ohio, intended, in good faith, to be temporary and transient, the owner is not to be understood as renouncing … his right of property … This principle … [is] essential to the safety of that right, as held by a large portion of our population, bordering for hundreds of miles upon the Ohio river, which separates them from States whose laws deny the existence of any such right.” – Chief Justice T.A. Marshall, in Collins “Degraded by their color and condition in life, the free negroes are a very dangerous and most objectionable population where slaves are numerous; therefore no slave can be safely freed but with the assent of the government where the manumission takes place.” – Justice John Catron, in Dabbs “Neither sound policy nor enlightened philanthropy should encourage, in a slaveholding state, the multiplication of a race whose condition could be neither that of freemen nor of slaves, and whose existence … tend[s] only to dissatisfy and corrupt those of their own race and color remaining in a state of servitude.” – Justice William Napton, in Charlotte “The negro, though morally and mentally inferior to the white man, is, nevertheless, an intellectual being, with feelings, necessities and habits common to humanity. … [denying free blacks the right to own property] would be inconsistent with civilization … every incentive to industry would be at once destroyed; and, sinking into idleness and depravity, he would become an intolerable nuisance.” – Justice Freeman Compton, in Ewell |
EMPIRE OF LAWS - The Legal History of the 50 American States > 4. MOUNTAIN SOUTH LEGAL HISTORY > 4.2 Mountain South: The Antebellum Era (1831-1861) >