reputed, and adjudged in law, to be chattels personal in the
hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors,
2 Brev. Dig. 229 Prince's Digest, 446.
administrators, and assigns, to all intents, con-
structions and purposes whatsoever.” The
law of Georgia is similar.
Let the reader reflect on the extent of the meaning in this
last clause. Judge Ruffin, pronouncing the opinion of the
Supreme Court of North Carolina, says a slave is “one doomed
Wheeler's Law of Slavery, 246, State v. Mann.
in his own person, and his posterity, to live without
knowledge, and without the capacity to make any-
thing his own, and to toil that another may reap
the fruits.'
This is what slavery is, this is what it is to be a slave! The
slave-code, then, of the Southern States, is designed to keep
millions of human beings in the condition of chattels personal;
to keep them in a condition in which the master may sell them,
dispose of their time, person, and labour; in which they can do
nothing, possess nothing, and acquire nothing, except for the
benefit of the master; in which they are doomed in themselves
and in their posterity to live without knowledge, without the
power to make anything their own, to toil that another may
reap. The laws of the slave-code are designed to work out this
problem, consistently with the peace of the community, and the
safety of that superior race which is constantly to perpetrate
this outrage.
From this simple statement of what the laws of slavery are
designed to do--from a consideration that the class thus to be
reduced, and oppressed, and made the subjects of a perpetual
robbery, are men of like passions with our own, men originally
made in the image of God as much as ourselves, men partakers
of that same humanity of which Jesus Christ is the highest ideal
and expression--when we consider that the material thus to be
acted upon is that fearfully explosive element, the soul of man;
that soul elastic, upspringing, immortal, whose free will even the
Omnipotence of God refuses to coerce, we may form some idea
of the tremendous force which is necessary to keep this mighti-
est of elements in the state of repression which is contemplated
in the definition of slavery.
Of course, the system necessary to consummate and perpetuate
such a work, from age to age, must be a fearfully stringent one;
and our readers will find that it is so. Men who make the laws,
and men who interpret them, may be fully sensible of their ter-
rible severity and inhumanity; but if they are going to preserve
the thing, they have no resource but to make the laws and to
execute them faithfully after they are made. They may say with
the Hon. Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, when solemnly from
the bench announcing this great foundation principle of slavery,
that “the power of the master must be absolute, to
render the submission of the slave perfect”--they
may say with him, “I most freely confess my sense of the
harshness of this proposition; I feel it as deeply as any man
can; and, as a principle of moral right, every person in his
retirement must repudiate it;” but they will also be obliged to
add, with him, “But in the actual condition of things it must
be so. * * This discipline belongs to the state of slavery.
* * * It is inherent in the relation of master and slave.”
And, like Judge Ruffin, men of honour, men of humanity,
men of kindest and gentlest feelings, are obliged to interpret these
severe laws with inflexible severity. In the perpetual reaction
of that awful force of human passion and human will, which
necessarily meets the compressive power of slavery--in that
seething, boiling tide, never wholly repressed, which rolls its vol-
canic stream underneath the whole framework of society so con-
stituted, ready to find vent at the least rent or fissure or
unguarded aperture--there is a constant necessity which urges
to severity of law, and inflexibility of execution. So Judge
Ruffin says, “We cannot allow the right of the master to
be brought into discussion in the courts of justice. The slave,
to remain a slave, must be made sensible that there is no ap-
peal from his master.” Accordingly, we find in the more
southern States, where the slave population is most accumulated,
and slave property most necessary and valuable, and, of course,
the determination to abide by the system the most decided,
there the enactments are most severe, and the interpretation of
Courts the most inflexible.* And, when legal decisions of a
contrary character begin to be made, it would appear that it is
a symptom of leaning towards emancipation. So abhorrent is
the slave-code to every feeling of humanity, that just as soon as
there is any hesitancy in the community about perpetuating the
institution of slavery, judges begin to listen to the voice of their
more honourable nature, and by favourable interpretations to
soften its necessary severities.
Such decisions do not commend themselves to the professional
admiration of legal gentlemen. But in the workings of the slave
system, when the irresponsible power which it guarantees comes
to be used by men of the most brutal nature, cases sometimes
arise for trial where the consistent exposition of the law involves
results so loathsome and frightful that the judge prefers to be
illogical, rather than inhuman. Like a spring out-gushing in the
desert, some noble man, now and then, from the fulness of his
own better nature, throws out a legal decision, generously incon-
sistent with every principle and precedent of slave jurisprudence,
and we bless God for it. All we wish is that there were more
of them, for then should we hope that the day of redemption
was drawing nigh.
The reader is now prepared to enter with us on the proof of
this proposition: That the slave-code is designed only for the
security of the master, and not with regard to the welfare of the
slave.
This is implied in the whole current of law-making and law-
administration, and is often asserted in distinct form, with a
precision and clearness of legal accuracy which, in a literary
point of view, are quite admirable. Thus, Judge Ruffin, after
stating that considerations restricting the power of the master
had often been drawn from a comparison of slavery with the
relation of parent and child, master and apprentice, tutor and
pupil, says distinctly:
The Court does not recognise their application. There is no likeness between
the cases. They are in opposition to each other, and there is an impassable gulf
between them. * * * In the one [case], the end in view is the
Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 246.
happiness of the youth, born to equal rights with that governor
on whom the duty devolves of training the young to usefulness, in
a station which he is afterwards to assume among freemen
. * * *
With slavery it is far otherwise. The end is the profit of the master his security and the public safety.
Not only is this principle distinctly asserted in so many
words, but it is more distinctly implied in multitudes of the
arguings and reasonings which are given as grounds of legal
decisions. Even such provisions as seem to be for the benefit
of the slave we often find carefully interpreted so as to show that
it is only on account of his property value to his master that he
is thus protected, and not from any consideration of humanity
Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 239.
towards himself. Thus it has been decided that a
master can bring no action for assault and battery
on his slave, unless the injury be such as to produce a
loss of service.
The spirit in which this question is discussed is worthy of
remark. We give a brief statement of the case, as presented in
Wheeler, p. 239.
It was an action for assault and battery committed by Dale
on one Cornfute's slave. It was contended by Cornfute's counsel
Cornfute v. Dale, April Term, 1800. 1 Har. and Johns. Rep. 4.
that it was not necessary to prove loss of service, in
order that the action should be sustained; that an
action might be supported for beating plaintiff's
horse; and that the lord might have an action for
2 Lutw. 1481. 20 Viner's Abr. 454.
the battery of his villein, which is founded on this
principle, that, as the villein could not support the
action, the injury would be without redress unless
the lord could. On the other side, it was said that Lord
Chief Justice Raymond had decided that an assault on a horse
was no cause of action, unless accompanied with a special damage
of the animal, which would impair his value.
Chief Justice Chase decided that no redress could be
obtained in the case, because the value of the slave had not
been impaired; without injury or wrong to the master no action
could be sustained; and assigned this among other reasons for
it, that there was no reciprocity in the case, as the master was
not liable for assault and battery committed by his slave,
neither could he gain redress for one committed upon his slave.
Let any reader now imagine what an amount of wanton
cruelty and indignity may be heaped upon a slave man or woman
or child without actually impairing their power to do service to
the master, and he will have a full sense of the cruelty of this
decision.
In the same spirit it has been held in North Carolina that
Tate v. O'Neal, 1 Hawks, 418, U.S. Dig. Sup. 2, p. 797, s. 121.
patrols (night watchmen) are not liable to the master
for inflicting punishment on the slave, unless their
conduct clearly demonstrates malice against the
master.
The cool-bloodedness of some of these legal discussions is
forcibly shown by two decisions in Wheeler's Law of Slavery,
p. 243. On the question whether the criminal offence of assault
and battery can be committed on a slave, there are two decisions
State v. Maner, 2 Hill's Rep. 453. Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 243.
of the two States of South and North Carolina; and
it is difficult to say which of these decisions has the
pre-eminence for cool legal inhumanity. That of
South Carolina reads thus. Judge O'Neill says:
The criminal offence of assault and battery cannot, at common law, be com-
mitted upon the person of a slave. For notwithstanding (for some purposes) a
slave is regarded by law as a person, yet generally he is a mere chattel personal,
and his right or personal protection belongs to his master, who can maintain an
action of trespass for the battery of his slave. There can be therefore no offence
against the State for a mere beating of a slave unaccompanied with any circumstances
of cruelty(!!), or an attempt to kill and murder. The peace of the State is not
thereby broken; for a slave is not generally regarded as legally capable of being
within the peace of the State. He is not a citizen, and is not in that character
entitled to her protection.
What declaration of the utter indifference of the State to the
See State v. Hale. Wheeler, p. 239. 2 Hawk. N.C. Rep. 582.
sufferings of the slave could be more elegantly cool
and clear? But in North Carolina it appears that
the case is argued still more elaborately.
Chief Justice Taylor thus shows that, after all, there are reasons
why an assault and battery upon the slave may, on the whole,
have some such general connection with the comfort and security
of the community, that it may be construed into a breach of the
peace, and should be treated as an indictable offence.
The instinct of a slave may be, and generally is, tamed into subservience to his
master's will, and from him he receives chastisement, whether it be merited or not,
with perfect submission; for he knows the extent of the dominion assumed over
him, and that the law ratifies the claim. But when the same authority is wan-
tonly usurped by a stranger, Nature is disposed to assert her rights, and to prompt
the slave to a resistance, often momentarily successful, sometimes fatally so. The
public peace is thus broken, as much as if a free man had been beaten; for the
party of the aggressor is always the strongest, and such contests usually terminate
by overpowering the slave, and inflicting on him a severe chastisement, without
regard to the original cause of the conflict. There is, consequently, as much
reason for making such offences indictable as if a white man had been the victim.
A wanton injury committed on a slave is a great provocation to the owner.
awakens his resentment, and has a direct tendency to a breach of the peace, by
inciting him to seek immediate vengeance. If resented in the heat of blood, it
would probably extenuate a homicide to manslaughter, upon the same principle
with the case stated by Lord Hale that if, A riding on the road, B had whipped
his horse out of the track, and then A had alighted and killed B. These offences
are usually committed by men of dissolute habits, hanging loose upon society,
who, being repelled from association with well-disposed citizens, take refuge in
the company of coloured persons and slaves, whom they deprave by their example,
embolden by their familiarity, and then beat, under the expectation that a slave
dare not resent a blow from a white man. If such offences may be committed
with impunity, the public peace will not only be rendered extremely insecure,
but the value of slave property must be much impaired, for the offenders can
seldom make any reparation in damages. Nor is it necessary, in any case, that
a person who has received an injury, real or imaginary, from a slave, should
carve out his own justice; for the law has made ample and summary provision
for the punishment of all trivial offences committed by slaves, by
1 Rev. Code, 448.
carrying them before a justice, who is authorised to pass sentence
for their being publicly whipped. This provision, while it ex-
cludes the necessity of
private vengeance, would seem to forbid
its legality, since it effectually protects all persons from the insolence of slaves, even
where their masters are unwilling to correct them upon complaint being made. The
common law has often been called into efficient operation, for the punishment of
public cruelty inflicted upon animals, for needless and wanton barbarity exercised
even by masters upon their slaves, and for various violations of decency, morals,
and comfort. Reason and analogy seem to require that a human being, although
the subject of property, should be so far protected as the public might be injured
through him.
For all purposes necessary to enforce the obedience of the slave, and to render
him useful as property, the law secures to the master a complete authority over
him, and it will not lightly interfere with the relation thus established. It is a
more effectual guarantee of his right of property, when the slave is protected from
wanton abuse from those who have no power over him; for it cannot be disputed
that a slave is rendered less eapable of performing his master's service, when he
finds himself exposed by the law to the capricious violence of every turbulent man
in the community.
If this is not a scrupulous disclaimer of all humane intention
in the decision, as far as the slave is concerned, and an explicit
declaration that he is protected only out of regard to the com-
fort of the community, and his property value to his master, it
is difficult to see how such a declaration could be made. After
all this cold-blooded course of remark, it is somewhat curious to
come upon the following certainly most unexpected declaration,
which occurs in the very next paragraph:--
Mitigated as slavery is by the humanity of our laws, the refinement of manners,
and by public opinion, which revolts at every instance of cruelty towards them, it
would be an anomaly in the system of police which affects them, if the offence
stated in the verdict were not indictable.
The reader will please to notice that this remarkable declara-
tion is made of the State of North Carolina. We shall have
occasion again to refer to it by and by, when we extract from
the statute-book of North Carolina some specimens of these
humane laws.
In the same spirit it is decided, under the law of Louisiana,