History of American Law pg1-202

I have been reading this by Lawrence Friedman for longer than I should have. For some reason work and the complexity of the work are hindering me. So, permit me not to summarize too much but just raise some observations on the work.

While not doubt impressive in its breadth and scope, it does suffer a bit from the usual ivory tower snipes, likely considered popular in this day and age. References to the US "empire" and reading into economic legislation "conservation"/green intentions, for example. Or in another example, he gives a neutral, if not positive, view of the role of "viewers", providing a rudimentary form business regulation, yet portrays the same work when done under the context of regulating slavery as oppressive.

It raises a great irony for me about the left. With the left's willingness to be permissive in comparing morality across groups today, I am always surprised how they are so willing to project modern morality and mores on the past. For example, he supposes indentured servants in colonial America were too scared to say anything about mistreatment, a claim he does not support this assertion other than him evaluating their lives as "hardship and oppression".

In a more hilarious argument with a freudian slip, he states that racial laws in the colonial area were based on "sexual envy", yet does nothing to prove this rather specific assertion. Sure he goes on about interracial dating, marriage, and such, yet that says nothing about envy (far from it if connect the other dots in the book). One would think given the large body of colonial laws he illustrates about sexual misconduct earlier in the book (prostitution, adultery, fornication, etc.) if there was envy involved, these same crime with a racial component would engender a harsher penalty that, no doubt one he would include if it existed. So, odd he mentioned that, something you want to tell us Larry?

(It reminds me of an almost pornographic attack by Mark Shields on McNeil-Lerher against an ad used against Harold Ford when he ran for a Senate seat in Tennessee. I almost needed a shower after hearing the verbal fusillade)

This gets me to my main question from the book so far. While it may be un-PC to say so, why were the laws of Slavery in the US more based on individual rights than property and tort? In a number of laws, slaves are held personally responsible for their actions, to a higher standard, and under harsher penalties. Yet, this should not be the case in common law as I understand it.

For example, slaves violated the law in a number of states if they possessed fire arms. If the slave was indeed property, as evidenced in law, isn't the owner of the slave truly in possession? If I try to sneak a handgun onto a plane, the TSA says *I* am in possession of the gun, not my suitcase. Likewise, slaves were held to harsher penalties under law for certain crimes. Why weren't the owners liable for the conduct of their property under their oversight? If my car's parking break fails due to my disregard for its condition, rolls down a hill, and runs over a child, the police are not going to arrest my car, nor are the parents going to sue my car for killing their child.

Now parts of this could be easily explained, or too easily dismissed, by the racism in the system. If so, what was the legal basis of this? It could also be explained by the state of the law at the time (particularly the tort aspects). Regardless, I find it odd early Americans wanted to treat slaves as property in one way, yet fail to complete the thought out on the other side.