But would they have had sensibilities of our time doing so?

Some of them? Not so far off. I'm reaching here, but I used to have a book that - focusing more on the miscegenation laws than the property issue - demonstrated that these things were far from the settled questions that they appear looking back with the perspective of everything that came after. But pre-1800 race matters weren't as - excuse me - black and white as they seemed, or as they later became.

ETA: I'll see if I can dig it up around here somewhere. And I sure as shit wouldn't turn in a paper using that sensibility without appending documentation that I wasn't just pulling this shit out of my ass.

I'm not debating the existence of vigourous opposition to slavery at the time. Been there, wronte the paper. However, I can't buy a 20th century mindset transplanting itself seamlessly into any debate pre-1800, whether pro or con--too much water under the bridge.

I hate to think what the 20th Century pro arugment might be.

I think it's not impossible, but like I said, I wouldn't want to do it off the cuff. But I didn't mean to sound like I was lecturing.

I think the contexts are too different. Race relations are not what they used to be, even when they're bad. Emancipation, education, civil rights battles, john crow...I attribute them all a huge impact.

Race relations are not what they used to be, even when they're bad

Of course of course, but I think the general conception of "back then" (not your's, ita) doesn't get that, for example, that anti-micegination laws were passed because people WERE miceginating, they were miceginating up a storm.

that anti-miscegenation laws were passed because people WERE miscegenating, they were miscegenating up a storm.

That was the most valuable thing I learned from a queer history seminar I took at SFSU. And it applies generally. If governments were passing laws against stuff, it generally means it was going on.

For the record, there were people who contemporaneously protested things like that.

For the record, if I were the teacher who assigned such a project, the letter of protest better sound more like Fox and Penn than King and Kennedy or risk public ridicule.

if I were the teacher who assigned such a project, the letter of protest better sound more like Fox and Penn than King and Kennedy or risk public ridicule.

No argument there.

If governments were passing laws against stuff, it generally means it was going on.

The bible too. It was a real 'ah hah' moment when I realized that.