An incomparably rich source of period information, the second volume of
The Southern Debate over Slavery offers a representative and
extraordinary sampling of the thousands of petitions about issues of
race and slavery that southerners submitted to county courts between the
American Revolution and Civil War. These petitions, filed by
slaveholders and nonslaveholders, slaves and free blacks, women and men,
abolitionists and staunch defenders of slavery, constitute a uniquely
important primary source. The collection records with great immediacy
and minute detail the dynamics and legal restrictions that shaped
southern society.