"A slave is not in the condition of a horse or an ox. His liberty is restrained, it is true, and his owner controls his actions and claims his services. But he is made after the image of the Creator. He has mental capacities, and an immortal principle in his nature, that constitute him equal to his owner but for the accidental position in which fortune has placed him. The owner has acquired conventional rights to him, but the laws under which he is held as a slave have not and cannot extinguish his high-born nature nor deprive him of many rights which are inherent in man." - Ford v. Ford, 26 Tenn. 92, 95-6 (1846)

Starting with the three-fifths clause and proceeding through abolition, I plan to research the ways in which courts and legislatures recognized slaves as men, and the ways in which they treated them as property.

-- TedKreit - 08 Nov 2009