Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T12:40:10.921Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Jurisprudence of American Slave Sales

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Jenny B. Wahl
Jenny B. Wahl
Affiliation:
The author is Associate Professor of Economics, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN 55057
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An analysis of all appellate cases involving slave-sales reveals that southern courts helped minimize the costs of trading in slaves. Slave-sales law also surpassed other contemporaneous commercial law in sophistication. Why? Greater information gaps between slave buyers and sellers called for more complex institutional support. The enormous property value embodied by slaves also led to more litigation, greater need for settled law, and a more even match of power between plaintiff and defendant. Additionally, legal rules surrounding slave sales substituted for the employment law governing free-labor markets.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 143 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akerlof, George. “The Market for Lemons: Qualitative Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 84, no. 3 (1970): 488–500.Google Scholar
American Digest, Century Edition. St. Paul: West Publishing, 1899.Google Scholar
Atack, Jeremy, and Passell, Peter. A New Economic View of American History From Colonial Times to 1940. 2nd ed.New York: Norton, 1994.Google Scholar
Bancroft, Frederic. Slave Trading in the Old South. 1931. Reprint. New York: Ungar, 1956.Google Scholar
Barzel, Yoram. Economics Analysis of Property Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Bauer, Raymond A., and Bauer, Alice H.. “Day to Day Resistance to Slavery.” In Articles on American Slavery: Rebellions, Resistance, and Runaways Within the Slave South, edited by Finkelman, Paul W., 2–29New York: Garland Publishing, 1989.Google Scholar
Calabresi, Guido. The Costs of Accidents. New York: Yale University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Calabresi, Guido, and Melamed, A. Douglas. “Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral.” Harvard Law Review, 85, no. 6 (1972): 1089–1128.Google Scholar
Calderhead, William. “How Extensive was the Border State Slave Trade? A New Look.” In Articles on American Slavery: Slave Trade and Migration: Domestic and Foreign, edited by Finkelman, Paul W., 42–55. New York: Garland Publishing, 1989.Google Scholar
Catterall, Helen T.Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro. 5 vols. 1926. Reprint. New York: Negro University Press, 1968.Google Scholar
Chandler, Alfred D., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald H. “The Nature of the Firm.” Economica N.S. 4, no. 16 (1937): 386–405.Google Scholar
Coase, Ronald H. “The Problem of Social Cost.” Journal of Law and Economics 3 (1960): 1–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooter, Robert D. “Economic Theories of Legal Liability.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 3 (1991): 11–20.Google Scholar
Cooter, Robert D., and Rubinfeld, Daniel L.. “Economic Analysis of Legal Disputes and Their Resolution.” Journal of Economic Literature 27, no. 3 (1989): 1067–97.Google Scholar
Cooter, Robert D., and Ulen, Thomas. Law and Economics. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1988.Google Scholar
de Chateaubriand, François-René. Memoirs. Translated by Robert, Baldick. 1791. Reprint. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961.Google Scholar
Drago, Edmund L., Broke by the War: Letters of a Slave Trader. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Du, Boff, Richard, B. “Toward a New Macroeconomic History.” In The Megacorp and Macrodynamics: Essays in Memory of Alfred Eichner, edited by Milberg, William S., 251–62. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992.Google Scholar
Eggertsson, Thrainn. Economic Behavior and Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engerman, Stanley L., and Gallman, Robert E.. “U.S. Economic Growth, 1783–1960.” In Research in Economic History, vol. 8, edited by Paul, Uselding, 1–46. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Fede, Andrew. “Legal Protection for Slave Buyers in the U.S. South: A Caveat Concerning Caveat Emptor.” The American Journal of Legal History, 31, no. 4 (1987): 322–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finkelman, Paul W. “Exploring Southern Legal History,” North Carolina Law Review 64, no. 1 (1985): 77–116.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W.Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery. New York: Norton, 1989.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W., and Engerman, Stanley L.. Time on the Cross. Vol. 1. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974.Google Scholar
Franklin, John H.From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. 6th ed. New York: Knopf, 1988.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M.Contract Law in America. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M.History of American Law. 2nd ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.Google Scholar
Gilles, Stephen G. “Negligence, Strict Liability, and the Cheapest Cost-Avoider.” Virginia Law Review 78, no. 4 (1992): 1291–1375.Google Scholar
Goldin, Claudia D. “The Economics of Emancipation.” this JOURNAL 33, no. 1 (1973): 66–85.Google Scholar
Goodel, William. The American Slave Code. New York: M.W. Dodd, 1853.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Walton H. “The Ancient Maxim of Caveat Emptor.” Yale Law Journal 40, no. 8 (1931): 1133–87.Google Scholar
Horwitz, Morton J.The Transformation of American Law 1780–1860.” Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurst, , Willard, J.. Growth of American Law. Boston: Little, Brown, 1950.Google Scholar
Hurst, , Willard, J.. Law and the Conditions of Freedom in the Nineteenth-Century United States. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956.Google Scholar
Lester, Julius. To Be a Slave. New York: Laurel Leaf Library, 1970.Google Scholar
Mokyr, Joel. “Technological Inertia in Economic History.” this JOURNAL 52, no. 2(1992): 325–38.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C.Structure and Change in Economic History. New York: Norton, 1981.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C.Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance. New York: Norton,1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, Douglass C. “Institutions.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 5, no. 1(1991): 97–112.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C. “Institutions and Economic Performance.” In Rationality, Institutions, and Economic Methodology, edited by Maki, Uskali, Bo, Gustafsson, and Christian, Knudson, 242–64. London: Routledge, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, Douglass C. “Economic Performance Through Time.” American Economic Review 84, no. 3 (1994): 359–68.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., Anderson, Terry L. and Hill, Peter J.. Growth and Welfare in the American Past: A New Economic History. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A.Tort Law: Cases and Economic Analysis. Boston: Little, Brown, 1982.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A.Economic Analysis of Law. 3rd ed.Boston: Little, Brown, 1986.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A., and Rosenfield, Andrew M.. “Impossibility and Related Doctrines in Contract Law: An Economic Analysis.” Journal of Legal Studies 6, no. 1 (1977): 83–118.Google Scholar
Ransom, Roger L., and Sutch, Richard. One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Ransom, Roger L. “Capitalists Without Capital: The Burden of Slavery and the Impact of Emancipation.” Agricultural History 62, no. 3 (1988): 133–60.Google Scholar
Roark, James L.Masters Without Slaves: Southern Planters in the Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: Norton, 1977.Google Scholar
Rosengarten, Theodore. Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.Google Scholar
Savitt, Todd L. “Smothering and Overlaying of Virginia Slave Children: A Suggested Explanation.” In Articles on American Slavery: Women and the Family in a Slave Society, edited by Finkelman, Paul W., 42–55. New York: Garland Publishing, 1989.Google Scholar
Schafer, Judith K. “Guaranteed Against the Vices and Maladies Prescribed by Law: Consumer Protection, the Law of Slave Sales, and the Supreme Court in Antebellum Louisiana.” American Journal of Legal History 31, no. 4 (1987): 306–21.Google Scholar
Schafer, Judith K.Slavery, the Civil Law, and the Supreme Court of Louisiana. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Soltow, Lee. Men and Wealth in the United States, 1850–1870. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Stampp, Kenneth M.The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-bellum South. New York: Vintage Books, 1956.Google Scholar
Tadman, Michael. Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Traders, and Slaves in the Old South. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Teeven, Kevin M.A History of the Anglo-American Common Law of Contract. New York: Greenwood, 1990.Google Scholar
Wahl, Jenny B. “The Bondsman’s Burden: An Economic Analysis of the Jurisprudence of Slaves and Common Carriers.” this JOURNAL 53, no. 3 (1993): 495–526.Google Scholar
Wittman, Donald. “The Price of Negligence under Differing Liability Rules.” Journal of Law and Economics 29, no. 1 (1986): 151–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Gavin. The Political Economy of the Cotton South: Households, Markets and Wealth in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Norton, 1978.Google Scholar
Zainaldin, Jamil S.Law in Antebellum Society. New York: Knopf, 1983.Google Scholar