“The Sheriff’s Children” interrogates the nature of personal responsibility in the context of structural racism, an essential part of Charles W. Chesnutt’s social and political critique. This is mostly expressed through the character of the sheriff. The story initially creates a juxtaposition between the townspeople and the sheriff, which predominantly supports the sheriff’s own view of himself as a man of personal responsibility and honor. Once the sheriff’s character is exposed through the revelation of Tom’s identity, both the reader and the sheriff are obliged to reconsider these assumptions. By confounding narrative expectations, Chesnutt asks questions about the responsibilities of the individual inside an unfair system, challenging the notion that compliance with the law is enough when the law itself is racist.

At first, the story contrasts the ignorant and violent prejudice of the townspeople with the sheriff’s cultivation and honor. While the mob wishes to break the law that—barely—protects the Black suspect’s rights to a hearing and express their prejudice in the strongest terms, the sheriff treats Sam with relative courtesy and is prepared to protect the prisoner against the white mob. Although the narrator reveals early on that the sheriff’s “family” had been enslavers before abolition, the narrative does not at this point hold him personally responsible.