"A Degraded Caste of Society uses antebellum US appellate court options and statues to illuminate "two competing criminal law doctrines that applied" to free Black people: "equal protection and unequal protection based on perceptions of race." These doctrines, Fede argues, "reflect the broader social conflicts between two competing legal cultures and legal consciousnesses. The legacy of these laws "continued to live on" until 2009 legislation made this sort of violence a federal crime. The unequal protection doctrine, which has its roots in the antebellum US, has a "long but not always completely acknowledged" or understood influence on criminal law in the United States"--