Growth in the slave population and threats from abolitionists led Southern states to adopt new slave codes in the mid-nineteenth century. Alabama’s revised code, adopted in 1852 and in effect until the end of the Civil War, built on a previous code from 1833.

1852

Chapter III. Patrols.

§983. All white male owners of slaves, below the age of sixty years, and all other free white persons, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five years, who are not disabled by sickness or bodily infirmity, except commissioned officers in the militia, and persons exempt by law from the performance of militia duty, are subject to perform patrol duty…. Read more