Chapter 4.0. Antebellum Slavery, ca. 1800-1860, Introduction
In order to put the readings in this and the following Module concerning the lead-up to the Civil War in context, you will need to have a good grasp on at least three sets of readings from earlier modules that concern race and the law of slavery:
- One of these was previously assigned and you may only need to review it quickly: Module 9, ch. 1, on the early law of slavery and the South Carolina Slave Code of 1740.
- A second set of readings, though also previously assigned, is now re-assigned for this module, namely the tables of data in Module 10, ch. 1-2, which concern race and slavery. These include Keyssar’s table on racial exclusions in state voting qualifications; and the three tables of Census data on the states between 1790 and 1860. These data are of course just for reference, and should not take long to review.
- Finally, Module 10, ch. 5, which consists of founding-era documents concerning rights, is now re-assigned as required reading for this Module. All the texts there, which are fairly short, concern race and slavery directly or indirectly.
This chapter builds on the above texts by providing several key laws, cases, or speeches of the antebellum period (ca. 1800-1860), which all concern race and slavery. As you will see, the arguments in the Dred Scott case frequently refer to most of these texts, so that your familiarity with them will give you a solid basis for analyzing the legal arguments used in that case.