The Senate’s recorded session belongs to the final legislative debate over the free-birth bill. As the proposal moved through the upper chamber, enslaved mothers’ family bonds were discussed in a...
The Senate annals record debate on the measure. Parliamentary discussion recognized questions of maternal and family rights while seeking to protect the slaveholding order from sudden change. The...
A further Senate session considered the emancipation bill before its passage later that month. The law’s supporters framed gradualism as humane and orderly; its limits left enslaved women’s...
