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Before the Emancipation Proclamation: Judicial recipe on determining who was a slave.

By Marks & Katz, LLC

One need look no further than Lexis or Westlaw to find the pathetic twists and turns of the institutions of slavery and racism.  It turns out that the Virginia appellate courts, alone, repeatedly reviewed disputes on determining who was a slave or not, including in the context of whether to grant a person temporary freedom from enslavement pending a final judicial determination of the issue. Consider this most unscientific eyeballing approach addressed just two years before the Civil War:  In the case of a person visibly appearing to be a negro, the presumption is that he is a slave; but in the case of a person visibly appearing to be a white man or an Indian, the presumption is that he is free. Hudgins v. Wrights, 1 Hen. & M. 134, and opinion of Roane, J...continue to full post

Full post as published by Underdog on May 12, 2010 (boomark / email).