Georgia Supreme Court Slavery Cases, 1846 - 1855

Slavery cases decided in the Georgia Supreme Court, 1846 to 1855. These are abridgements of opinions issued by the Georgia Supreme Court. The opinions are taken from the official Georgia Supreme Court Reports, Volumes 1 through 18. Portions of the opinions dealing with generic contract law, estate law, property law, rules of evidence and procedure and the like, not bearing on the institution of slavery, have been deleted to shorten the length of this volume. Included are cases directly addressing the institution of slavery, as well as cases in which slaves are the subject of litigation, as in warranties of sale, distribution of estates, disposition of trust property, damages for death or injury to slave, etc. These cases serve to illustrate the overwhelming role the institution of slavery played in the economy and wealth of the American slave states. Each court case involves and actual case in controversy containing a set of facts which serves to illustrates the lives of both the enslaved as well as free persons of color under slavery. These cases demonstrate that the institution of slavery was not an accidental historical phenomenon or an informal social compact, but was the result of an extensive and highly organized system of laws regulating every aspect of the lives of the enslaved and free persons of color on the federal, state and municipal level, vigorously prosecuted by the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. The discussion in these supreme court opinions also contain extensive dicta (the judges' policy rationales) from the judges seeking to justify slavery on constitutional, historical, moral, religious, and social bases. These opinions suggest that slavery was so engrained in the social and economic life of the slave states, that the institution would never have been given up voluntarily, and foreshadow the attitudes of the former slave owning class after slavery's nominal elimination. Judge Henry L. Benning was appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court in 1853, and his opinions begin at volume 14. Judge Benning was later an officer in the Confederate army and was the namesake of Fort Benning, Georgia.