Fathers of Conscience: Mixed-Race Inheritance in the Antebellum SouthFathers of Conscience examines high court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and estates law to give their slave partners and children official recognition and thus circumvent the law of slavery. The will contests that followed determined