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Slavery Jurisprudence On The Supreme Court Of North Carolina, 1828-1858: William Gaston And Thomas Ruffin, Timothy C. Meyer

Campbell Law Review

In the years preceding the Civil War, two North Carolina Supreme Court Justices, Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin and Associate Justice William Gaston, offered starkly different legal opinions on issues relating to slavery. Despite broad similarities in their backgrounds and their agreement on many other legal and judicial issues, Ruffin and Gaston approached slavery from sharply contrasting perspectives. Both men used their positions on the bench to influence the treatment and legal status of slaves. While Ruffin vigorously defended the peculiar institution and took the concept of chattel to a logical extreme, Gaston denounced many of its dehumanizing elements. In fact, …