This book provides a wealth of information about conceptions of moral behavior, interracial sexual activity, and notions of family in the antebellum South. Jones has carefully mined trial court records to uncover the highly personal nature of these inheritance disputes. She has provided an insightful examination of slavery, manumission, freedom, and property rights that should have a broad appeal to scholars. -- Journal of Law and History Review An outstanding work that will be an important contribution to the monographic literature on the law of slavery in the United States. -- Mark V. Tushnet * author of Slave Law in the American South: State v. Mann in History and Literature * Fathers of Conscience provides a beautifully nuanced analysis of an extremely difficult topic, an area of law where the sexual exploitation made possible by slavery also had the potential to undermine the institution. While tracing the laws development, Jones never loses sight of the high social stakes or the humanity of those involved, using the rules of inheritance to explore the construction of power, the dynamics of race, and the complexities of personal relationships in the antebellum South. -- Laura F. Edwards * author of The People and Their Peace: Legal Culture and the Transformation of Inequality in the Post-Revolutionary South * Fathers of Conscience is an important contribution to the study of property, slavery, and freedom in the U.S. South. Anyone interested in law, marriage, and race in the nineteenth-century South will benefit from reading it. -- Ariela Gross * author of Double Character: Slavery and Mastery in the Antebellum Southern Courtroom *
