Slavery and the “American Way of War,” 1607–1861

Slavery and warfare were inextricably intertwined in the history of Britain’s North American colonies and, subsequently, the early republic. Yet this deep connection has not been acknowledged in the historiography. In particular, the debate about an “American way of war” has neglected the profound significance of slavery as a formative factor in America’s “first way of war.” Here, these two forms of organized, systemic violence are considered not merely within a comparative framework but as phenomena whose relationship is so deeply enmeshed that they cannot be meaningfully understood in isolation. Slavery is thus placed centrally in an examination of American war making, from the colonial to the antebellum period. Three main areas are highlighted: slave raiding against Native Americans, slavery as a factor in imperial and national strategy-making and diplomacy, and slavery as an “internal war.”

A Comparative Study: Anxiety as an Impact of Slavery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!

This paper discusses the anxiety as an impact of slavery reflected in two outstanding African-American novels: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!. These novels are set in around the slavery period which shows how cruel and brutal slavery practices in the United States. The plots consist of some traditions and beliefs among White and African-American which have emerged since the antebellum period. By using a comparative approach, this paper focuses on the types of anxiety mentioned by Sigmund Freud. The analysis shows that both neurotic and moral anxieties play a pivotal psychological element throughout the intense “black-white” binary narratives. In this case, Toni Morrison’s Beloved consists of neurotic anxiety in the form of trauma experienced by Sethe and William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! consist of moral anxiety in the form of shame for having Negro bloodline in aristocrat Southern plantation culture. Both novels show that slavery, whether it stands as a tradition or as an economic value, has significantly shaped the direction of American society.

Re-Visiting the Creole Myth: Race and Ethnicity on the New Orleans Stage

Scholars who have studied the contested meaning of “creole” in Louisiana have typically maintained that the “Creole myth,” that is the strategic redefinition of the term “creole” to refer to the white descendants of Louisiana’s original French and Spanish settlers, emerged during or shortly after the Civil War. Drawing on a newspaper article and two case studies related to the New Orleans theatre, this essay proposes a new periodization for the emergence of the “Creole myth” and a re-evaluation of the cultural and political work it was doing. I want to suggest that conceiving of the Creole myth as an antebellum phenomenon (rather than examining it in the context of the postbellum era) allows us to see that its creation was not just motivated by French Louisianian concerns about cultural integrity and ethnic survival but also by this population’s anxiety about race and the status and mobility of free people of color. As a rhetorical tool that gained traction in the 1830s, the strategic redefinition of “creole” to exclude all people of African descent operated in tandem with other attempts to curtail the rights of free people of color, preventing their social, economic, and political ascent during the antebellum period. Ceux qui ont étudié le sens contesté du terme « créole » en Louisiane ont typiquement maintenu que le « mythe créole », c’est-à-dire, la redéfinition stratégique du terme « créole » à ne comprendre que les descendants blancs des colons d’origine française ou espagnole est apparu pendant ou peu après la guerre de Sécession. S’appuyant sur un article de journal et sur deux études de cas du théâtre à la Nouvelle-Orléans, cet article propose une nouvelle périodisation de l’émergence du « mythe créole » ainsi qu’une réévaluation du travail politique et culturelle qu’il exerçait. Je veux suggérer qu’en concevant le mythe créole comme phénomène d’avant la guerre de Sécession (plutôt que de l’examiner dans le contexte de l’après-guerre), nous comprenons que sa création a été motivé non seulement par des préoccupations d’intégrité culturelle et de survie ethnique de la part des Franco-louisianais, mais aussi par leur anxiété raciale par rapport à la mobilité des gens de couleur libres. Comme outil rhétorique qui a gagné du terrain dans les années 1830, la redéfinition stratégique de « créole » afin d’exclure tous ceux d’ascendance africaine fonctionnait en combinaison avec d’autres tentatives à restreindre les droits des gens de couleur libres, empêchant leur ascension sociale, économique et politique pendant l’ère d’avant la guerre de Sécession.

Evaluating Defenses of a Requirement of Adverse Interests

This chapter responds to scholars who have sought to defend a modified Article III adverse-party requirement by redefining that requirement in terms of the underlying adverse interests of potential parties to litigation. Such an adverse interest construct fares poorly as an account of the language and history of Article III and fails to cohere with the practice of federal courts during the antebellum period and with the way antebellum jurists explained that practice to the world. Nor does the adverse interest construct advance the normative goals that have sometimes been seen as justifying a requirement of adversary contestation. Lacking a clear basis in text, history, and normative considerations, the adverse-interest account does a poor job of making sense of Article III.

Naturalizing affection, securing property: Family, slavery, and the courts in Antebellum South Carolina, 1830–1860

The scholarship on race and political development demonstrates that race has long been embedded in public policy and political institutions. Less noticed in this literature is how family, as a deliberate political institution, is used to further racial goals and policy purposes. This article seeks to fill this gap by tracing the foundations of the political welding of family and race to the slave South in the antebellum period from 1830 to 1860. Utilizing rich testimonial evidence in court cases, I demonstrate how antebellum courts in South Carolina constructed a standard of “domestic affection” from the everyday lives of southerners, which established affection as a natural norm practiced by white male slaveowners in their roles as fathers, husbands, and masters. By constructing and regulating domestic affection to uphold slavery amid the waves of multiple modernizing forces (democratization, advancing market economy, and household egalitarianism), Southern courts in the antebellum period presaged their postbellum role of reconstructing white supremacy in the wake of slavery's demise. In both cases the courts played a formative role in naturalizing family relations in racially specific ways, constructing affection and sexuality, respectively, to anchor the white family as the bulwark of white social and political hegemony.

7 “A remarkable accomplishment for one of the gentle sex”

The emphasis on Sarah Smith’s reputation as an educator and the foundational role she had in establishing music programs at both the Columbia Female Institute and the Athenaeum brings to the fore opportunities for southern women to craft their own careers. Those who deliberately put themselves before a public in the antebellum period risked much damage to their social standing. Most carefully guarded their gentility by retaining as much obscurity as possible, but others notably stood out for their place in the public gaze....