| The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South Contributor(s): Edwards, Laura F. (Author) |
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ISBN: 080785932X ISBN-13: 9780807859322 Publisher: University of North Carolina Press OUR PRICE: $40.38 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: April 2009 Annotation: In the half-century following the Revolutionary War, the logic of inequality underwent a profound transformation within the southern legal system. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Carolina, Laura Edwards illuminates those changes by revealing the importance of localized legal practice. Placing slaves, free blacks, and white women at the center of the story, Edwards recasts traditional narratives of legal and political change and sheds light on key issues in U.S. history, including the persistence of inequalityAAA1/2particularly slaveryAAA1/2in the face of expanding democracy. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) - History | United States - 19th Century - Law | Legal History |
| Dewey: 340.115 |
| LCCN: 2008041343 |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 6.1" W x 9.1" (1.45 lbs) 448 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 18th Century - Chronological Period - 1800-1850 - Geographic Orientation - South Carolina - Geographic Orientation - North Carolina - Cultural Region - South - Cultural Region - South Atlantic - Cultural Region - Southeast U.S. |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In the half-century following the Revolutionary War, the logic of inequality underwent a profound transformation within the southern legal system. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Carolina, Laura F. Edwards illuminates those changes by revealing the importance of localized legal practice. Edwards shows that following the Revolution, the intensely local legal system favored maintaining the "peace," a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. Ordinary people, rather than legal professionals and political leaders, were central to its workings. Those without rights--even slaves--had influence within the system because of their positions of subordination, not in spite of them. By the 1830s, however, state leaders had secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. Edwards concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. Placing slaves, free blacks, and white women at the center of the story, The People and Their Peace recasts traditional narratives of legal and political change and sheds light on key issues in U.S. history, including the persistence of inequality--particularly slavery--in the face of expanding democracy. In the half-century following the Revolutionary War, the logic of inequality underwent a profound transformation within the southern legal system. Drawing on extensive archival research in North and South Carolina, Laura F. Edwards illuminates those changes by revealing the importance of localized legal practice. Edwards shows that following the Revolution, the intensely local legal system favored maintaining the "peace," a concept intended to protect the social order and its patriarchal hierarchies. By the 1830s, however, state leaders had secured support for a more centralized system that excluded people who were not specifically granted individual rights, including women, African Americans, and the poor. Edwards concludes that the emphasis on rights affirmed and restructured existing patriarchal inequalities, giving them new life within state law with implications that affected all Americans. Placing slaves, free blacks, and white women at the center of the story, Edwards recasts traditional narratives of legal and political change and sheds light on key issues in U.S. history, including the persistence of inequality--particularly slavery--in the face of expanding democracy. |
Contributor Bio(s): Edwards, Laura F.: - Laura F. Edwards is professor of history at Duke University. She is author of Scarlett Doesn't Live Here Anymore: Southern Women in the Civil War Era and Gendered Strife and Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruction. |