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.

A collection of 180 county court petitions designed to offer as broad a selection as possible and include the voices of all participants: black and white, slave and free, slaveholder and non-slaveholder, male and female.

Slavery and southern society as documented in individual petitions

Essays discuss proslavery arguments in the churches, the urge toward compromise and unity, the coming of schisms in the various denominations, and the role of local conditions in determining policies

"The American Debate over Slavery, 1760–1865 will be a superb resource for teachers and students of early American history. Editors Lubert, Hardwick, and Hammond have carefully assembled and introduced a rich collection of significant documents that bring the slavery debate into sharp and illuminating focus. This is easily the best book in its field." --Peter S. Onuf, University of Virginia and Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello)