University, Court, and Slave: Proslavery Academic Thought and Southern Jurisprudence, 1831–1861
Alfred L. Brophy
Abstract
University, Court, and Slave recovers the world of proslavery thought from the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831 to the start of the Civil War. It begins with William and Mary professor Thomas R. Dew, who argued that history and economic utility both supported slavery. It reveals the pervasive arguments by academics about the utility of slavery and its grounding in history, political theory, and culture. Then the book turns to antislavery writers, who challenged the assertions about the utility of slavery and its places in history. Through a study of leading southern judges and by a study of key ar ... More
University, Court, and Slave recovers the world of proslavery thought from the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831 to the start of the Civil War. It begins with William and Mary professor Thomas R. Dew, who argued that history and economic utility both supported slavery. It reveals the pervasive arguments by academics about the utility of slavery and its grounding in history, political theory, and culture. Then the book turns to antislavery writers, who challenged the assertions about the utility of slavery and its places in history. Through a study of leading southern judges and by a study of key areas of slave law this book reveals the centrality of economic and cultural support for slavery in the southern judiciary. It also reveals the nature of southern jurisprudence, which revered property rights while it relied on historical jurisprudence and empirical arguments. The concluding chapter links academics’ proslavery arguments to the secession movement. This study reveals the deep connections between southern universities and proslavery arguments. It locates the southern academy at the center of a world of slavery and shows that the universities provided intellectual support for slave law and secession.
Keywords:
Slavery,
proslavery thought,
universities,
legal history,
constitutional history,
pre-Civil War United States
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199964239 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: August 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199964239.001.0001 |
