Details

Subject(s)

• Freed persons—Legal status, laws, etc—Southern States—History—19th century [Browse]
• Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877) [Browse]

Series

Studies in legal history [More in this series]

Summary note

Nothing More than Freedom explores the long and complex legal history of Black freedom in the United States. From the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 until the end of Reconstruction in 1877, supreme courts in former slave states decided approximately 700 lawsuits associated with the struggle for Black freedom and equal citizenship. This litigation - the majority through private law - triggered questions about American liberty and reassessed the nation's legal and political order following the Civil War. Judicial decisions set the terms of debates about racial identity, civil rights, and national belonging, and established that slavery, as a legal institution and social practice, remained actionable in American law well after its ostensible demise. The verdicts determined how unresolved facets of slavery would undercut ongoing efforts for abolition and the realization of equality. Insightful and compelling, this work makes an important intervention in the history of post-Civil War law.

Notes

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 04 May 2023).

Contents

• Introduction : an abolitionist vision
• The contract controversy
• "Wreck and ruin
• By force it was destroyed"-- Confederate reckonings
• Life after the death of slavery
• "Back into the days of slavery
• The grave question"
• Final failure
• Epilogue : an abolitionist revision.

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ISBN

9781009219181 (ebook)

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