George Wallace (advocate)

George Wallace (1727–1805) was a Scottish jurist and writer.

Life

Wallace was admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh, on 16 Feb. 1754, was appointed a commissary of Edinburgh in 1792.

Works

Wallace published in 1760 in Edinburgh a System of the Principles of the Law of Scotland.[1] It contained criticism of slavery and recommended surrendering empire if empire required exploitation of slave labor. Following Montesquieu, Wallace denied all classical grounds for justifying enslavement.[2] Louis de Jaucourt translated some part of the book for his article "Traite des nègres" (Slave trade) in the Encyclopédie,[2] one of the first real denunciations of the colonial project in French thought.[3]

He also published Thoughts on the Origin of Feudal Tenures and the Descent of Ancient Peerages in Scotland (1783; 2nd edit., Nature and Descent of Ancient Peerages connected with the State of Scotland, 1785), and Prospects from Hills in Fife (1796, 2nd edit. 1800).

Family

Wallace died unmarried. He was the son of the minister Robert Wallace (1697–1771).[1]

Bibliography

  •  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Wallace, Robert (1697-1771)". Dictionary of National Biography. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  • Curran, Andrew S. (2011). The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment. JHU Press. ISBN 978-1-4214-0230-7.
  • Davis, David Brion (1988). From Homicide to Slavery: Studies in American Culture. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-505418-7.
  • Davis, David Brion (1999). The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-802949-6.
  • de Jaucourt, Louis (1765). "Traite des nègres". Encyclopédie (in French).
  • de Jaucourt, Louis (1765). "Slave trade". The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert.

Notes

  1. 1 2  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Wallace, Robert (1697-1771)". Dictionary of National Biography. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. 1 2 Davis 1988, p. 229-230.
  3. ↑ Curran 2011.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1899). "Wallace, Robert (1697-1771)". Dictionary of National Biography. 59. London: Smith, Elder & Co.


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