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The purpose of this paper is to focus on historiographical synthesis, the methods uses, theories engaged, and theoretical interventions proposed by the sources used throughout the paper. After reviewing the different sources that will be used for The Relationship of Legal Rule and Slavery during the Nineteenth Century historiographical paper there was about two to three debate or questions the sources share. The majority of the topics that are represented within the works are: race, gender, social order, politics, space, power, economics and identity within the antebellum south. One of the questions that came up is how does a patriarchal society work within legal institutions when there is a “double character” associated with slaves? “Double Character” is describes how slaves were seen as both person and property. This is looked at in Double Character, written by Ariela J. Gross, by issuing the paradoxes of slaves as person and property within the south. Her book is written within the context of social history, similar to the other sources, in order to show the interlinking of law and society through close statistical analysis of trial. On the other side of the coin, Walter Johnson’s book Soul by Soul looks at everyday dealings of traders, buyers, and slaves within the social networking of the slave market. Johnson focuses on the patriarchal society and the roles that slave-owners and traders wanted to present outward. By taking these two concepts together provided by Gross and Johnson, I initially thought how does this change when gender is looked at separate from race? What does it mean for class and honor as well, especially within a social society that is ruled by the identity you presented in the public sphere. The other question or debate that occurred in my initial overview of the sources is looking at Sven Beckert and Seth Rockman text as well as the article by Matthew Axtell “Toward a New Legal History of Capitalism and Unfree Labor”. Axtell argues focuses on the new history of capitalism by arguing how slavery was an essential component of economic expansion. Beckert and Rockman demonstrate how slavery played a vital role in the expansion of the market place in American History. By combining both of these topics together, which are similar in nature, how can we use the methods of social history to better understand the relationship of slavery and legal rule? Each of the sources shows the history of how the topics of slavery and legal rule have been altered, changed, and developed by different historians.