A solid working copy of an important text relating to the legal aspects of slavery in the run up to the Civil War and including the Fugitive Slave Act.

Extensive discussion is given to the legal position of the slave, legal punishments and labor practices for slave owners, limitations on slave's legal rights and right to testify, on the status of slaves as property, on the heritability and perpetuity of enslavement, on the inability of slaves to testify against any white person in court, be  party to a civil suit, etc., A fascinating section as well on limitations imposed on the Freedom of the Press by slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act, etc., 

This is the second, preferred edition with its significant additions and more immediate Civil War context. 

The present copy signed on the ffep by A. N. Neely who was Vice President of The Colored Press Association of Arkansas from its inception in 1886. He was also reporter for one of Arkansas' few black newspapers, The Forrest City Advocate, an advocate for black journalists of the period, etc., 

Stroud, George M. A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States of America. Second Edition, with Some Alterations and Considerable Additions. Philadelphia. Henry Longstreth. 1856. 300pp.

Good -, ex library with attendant stamps, etc., cloth split at hinge, textually very solid and clean.