Eric Foner Quote
New laws also redefined in the interest of the planter the terms of credit and the right to property—the essence of economic power in the rural South. Lien laws now gave a landlord’s claim to his share of the crop precedence over a laborer’s for wages or a merchant’s for supplies, thus shifting much of the risk of farming from employer to employee. North Carolina’s notorious Landlord and Tenant Act of 1877 placed the entire crop in the planter’s hands until rent had been paid and allowed him full power to decide when a tenant’s obligation had been fulfilled—thus making the landlord the court, sheriff, and jury, complained one former slave.
Eric Foner
New laws also redefined in the interest of the planter the terms of credit and the right to property—the essence of economic power in the rural South. Lien laws now gave a landlord’s claim to his share of the crop precedence over a laborer’s for wages or a merchant’s for supplies, thus shifting much of the risk of farming from employer to employee. North Carolina’s notorious Landlord and Tenant Act of 1877 placed the entire crop in the planter’s hands until rent had been paid and allowed him full power to decide when a tenant’s obligation had been fulfilled—thus making the landlord the court, sheriff, and jury, complained one former slave.
Related Quotes
About Eric Foner
Foner has published several books on the Reconstruction period, starting with Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877 in 1988. His online courses on "The Civil War and Reconstruction", published in 2014, are available from Columbia University on ColumbiaX.
In 2011, Foner's The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (2010) won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the Lincoln Prize, and the Bancroft Prize. Foner previously won the Bancroft Prize in 1989 for his book Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. In 2000, he was elected president of the American Historical Association. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2018.