University, court, and slave : proslavery academic thought and southern jurisprudence, 1831-1861

409 Pages·2016·10.821 MB·English

by  Brophy, Alfred L

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University, Court, and Slave
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University, Court, and Slave
Pro-slavery Thought in Southern Colleges
and Courts and the Coming of Civil War
ALFRED L. BROPHY
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Brophy, Alfred L., author.
Title: University, court, and slave : pro-slavery thought and southern
colleges and the coming of Civil War / Alfred L. Brophy.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016009495 (print) | LCCN 2016011052 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780199964239 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780199964246 (E-book) |
ISBN 9780190263614 (E-book) | ISBN 9780190625931 (Online Component)
Subjects: LCSH: Slavery—Law and legislation—United States—History—
19th century. | Jurisprudence—Southern States—History—19th century. |
Southern States—Intellectual life—19th century.
Classification: LCC KF4545.S5 B76 2016 (print) | LCC KF4545.S5 (ebook) |
DDC 342.7308/7—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016009495
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Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
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For Barbara F. Thompson, my favorite librarian
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CONTENTS
Timeline ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xxi
Illustrations xxv
Introduction 1
PART I THE CONTOURS OF ACADEMIC PRO-SLAVERY THOUGHT
1. The Rebel and the Professor: Nat Turner, Thomas Roderick Dew,
and the Utility of Slavery 21
2. Pro-slavery Academic Thought in the 1840s and 1850s 48
3. The Southern Scholar 97
4. Brown University’s President Confronts Slavery 131
5. The Chancellor, the Slave, and the Student 146
PART II CONNECTING MORAL PHILOSOPHY
AND LEGAL THOUGHT
6. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850: The Grammar of Pro-slavery
Thought 159
7. The Novelist and the Jurist: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
Jurisprudence of Sentiment 182
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PART III THE CORE OF SOUTHERN LEGAL THOUGHT
8. Beyond State v. Mann: Thomas Ruffin’s Jurisprudence 197
9. Joseph Henry Lumpkin: Industrialism and Slavery
in the Old South 212
10. Pro-slavery Jurisprudence: Thomas Reade Roots Cobb’s
An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery 227
11. “The dictate of a wise policy”: Judicial
Opposition to Freedom 254
12. Slavery, Property, and Constitutionalism in the
Secession Debates 275
Notes 297
Index 363
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TIMELINE
1776 Declaration of Independence
1790 Thomas Ruffin born
1795 Dred Scott born in Southampton, Virginia
1800 Nat Turner born in Southampton, Virginia
1804 Haitian revolution ends and Haiti becomes a separate country
1808 Congress outlaws importation of enslaved people into United States
1817 American Colonization Society founded
1820 Missouri Compromise
1825 John Robinson leaves seventy-t hree people and his plantation to
Washington College
1827 Francis Wayland becomes president of Brown University
1829 David Walker’s Appeal published
1830 North Carolina Justice Thomas Ruffin delivers State v. Mann opinion
1831 Nat Turner Rebellion
1832 Debate in Virginia legislature over slavery
William Gaston opposes slavery in speech at University of North
Carolina
Professor Thomas R. Dew publishes pro-slavery Review of the Debate in
the Legislature
Jesse Harrison publishes response to Dew
1834 Nathaniel Beverley Tucker becomes law professor at William and Mary
Slavery abolished in British West Indies
North Carolina Justice William Gaston delivers State v. Will opinion
1835 Brown President Francis Wayland publishes Elements of Moral Science
American Anti- Slavery Society begins widespread distribution of litera-
ture in the South through the U.S. mail
1836 Centre College president John Young opposes slavery in address at
Miami University of Ohio
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