The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

The following is a law of Georgia.—'If any slave shall presume to strike any white person, such slave shall, upon trial and conviction before the justice or justices, suffer such punishment for the first offence as they shall think fit, not extending to life or limb; and for the second offence, DEATH.'—Prince's Digest, 450. The same law exists in South Carolina, with this difference, that death is made the punishment for the third offence. In both states, the law contains this remarkable proviso: 'Provided always, that such striking be not done by the command and in the defence of the person or property of the owner, or other person having the government of such slave, in which case the slave shall be wholly excused!' According to this law, if a slave, by the direction of his OVERSEER, strike a white man who is beating said overseer's dog, 'the slave shall be wholly excused;' but if the white man has rushed upon the slave himself, instead of the dog, and is furiously beating him, if the slave strike back but a single blow, the legal penalty is 'ANY punishment not extending to life or limb;' and if the tortured slave has a second onset made upon him, and, after suffering all but death, again strike back in self-defence, the law KILLS him for it. So, if a female slave, in obedience to her mistress, and in defence of 'her property,' strike a white man who is kicking her mistress' pet kitten, she 'shall be wholly excused,' saith the considerate law: but if the unprotected girl, when beaten and kicked herself, raise her hand against her brutal assailant, the law condemns her to 'any punishment, not extending to life or limb; and if a wretch assail her again, and attempt to violate her chastity, and the trembling girl, in her anguish and terror, instinctively raise her hand against him in self-defence, she shall, saith the law, 'suffer DEATH.'

Reader, this diabolical law is the 'public opinion' of Georgia and South Carolina toward the slaves. This is the vaunted 'protection' afforded them by their 'high-souled chivalry.' To show that the 'public opinion' of the slave states far more effectually protects the property of the master than the person of the slave, the reader is referred to two laws of Louisiana, passed in 1819. The one attaches a penalty 'not exceeding one thousand dollars,' and 'imprisonment not exceeding two years,' to the crime of 'cutting or breaking any iron chain or collar,' which any master of slaves has used to prevent their running away; the other, a penalty 'not exceeding five hundred dollars,' to 'wilfully cutting out the tongue, putting out the eye, cruelly burning, or depriving any slave of any limb.' Look at it—the most horrible dismemberment conceivable cannot be punished by a fine of more than five hundred dollars. The law expressly fixes that, as the utmost limit, and it may not be half that sum; not a single moment's imprisonment stays the wretch in his career, and the next hour he may cut out another slave's tongue, or burn his hand off. But let the same man break a chain put upon a slave, to keep him from running away, and, besides paying double the penalty that could be exacted from him for cutting off a slave's leg, the law imprisons him not exceeding two years!

This law reveals the heart of slaveholders towards their slaves, their diabolical indifference to the most excruciating and protracted torments inflicted on them by 'any person;' it reveals, too, the relative protection afforded by 'public opinion' to the person of the slave, in appalling contrast with the vastly surer protection which it affords to the master's property in the slave. The wretch who cuts out the tongue, tears out the eyes, shoots off the arms, or burns off the feet of a slave, over a slow fire, cannot legally be fined more than five hundred dollars; but if he should in pity loose a chain from his galled neck, placed there by the master to keep him from escaping, and thus put his property in some jeopardy, he may be fined one thousand dollars, and thrust into a dungeon for two years! and this, be it remembered, not for stealing the slave from the master, nor for enticing, or even advising him to run away, or giving him any information how he can effect his escape; but merely, because, touched with sympathy for the bleeding victim, as he sees the rough iron chafe the torn flesh at every turn, he removes it;—and, as escape without this incumbrance would be easier than with it, the master's property in the slave is put at some risk. For having caused this slight risk, the law provides a punishment—fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding two years. We say 'slight risk,' because the slave may not be disposed to encounter the dangers, and hunger, and other sufferings of the woods, and the certainty of terrible inflictions if caught; and if he should attempt it, the risk of losing him is small. An advertisement of five lines will set the whole community howling on his track; and the trembling and famished fugitive is soon scented out in his retreat, and dragged back and delivered over to his tormentors.

The preceding law is another illustration of the 'protection' afforded to the limbs and members of slaves, by 'public opinion' among slaveholders.

Here follow two other illustrations of the brutal indifference of 'public opinion' to the torments of the slave, while it is full of zeal to compensate the master, if any one disables his slave so as to lessen his market value. The first is a law of South Carolina. It provides, that if a slave, engaged in his owner's service, be attacked by a person 'not having sufficient cause for so doing,' and if the slave shall be 'maimed or disabled' by him, so that the owner suffers a loss from his inability to labor, the person maiming him shall pay for his 'lost time,' and 'also the charges for the cure of the slave!' This Vandal law does not deign to take the least notice of the anguish of the 'maimed' slave, made, perhaps, a groaning cripple for life; the horrible wrong and injury done to him, is passed over in utter silence. It is thus declared to be not a criminal act. But the pecuniary interests of the master are not to be thus neglected by 'public opinion'. Oh no! its tender bowels run over with sympathy at the master's injury in the 'lost time' of his slave, and it carefully provides that he shall have pay for the whole of it.—See 2 Brevard's Digest, 231, 2.

A law similar to the above has been passed in Louisiana, which contains an additional provision for the benefit of the master—ordaining, that 'if the slave' (thus maimed and disabled,) 'be forever rendered unable to work,' the person maiming, shall pay the master the appraised value of the slave before the injury, and shall, in addition, take the slave, and maintain him during life.' Thus 'public opinion' transfers the helpless cripple from the hand of his master, who, as he has always had the benefit of his services, might possibly feel some tenderness for him, and puts him in the sole power of the wretch who has disabled him for life—protecting the victim from the fury of his tormentor, by putting him into his hands! What but butchery by piecemeal can, under such circumstances, be expected from a man brutal enough at first to 'maim' and 'disable' him, and now exasperated by being obliged to pay his full value to the master, and to have, in addition, the daily care and expense of his maintenance. Since writing the above, we have seen the following judicial decision, in the case of Jourdan, vs. Patton—5 Martin's Louisiana Reports, 615. A slave of the plaintiff had been deprived of his only eye, and thus rendered useless, on which account the court adjudged that the defendant should pay the plaintiff his full value. The case went up, by appeal, to the Supreme court. Judge Mathews, in his decision said, that 'when the defendant had paid the sum decreed, the slave ought to be placed in his possession,'—adding, that 'the judgment making full compensation to the owner operates a change of property. He adds, 'The principle of humanity which would lead us to suppose, that the mistress whom he had long served, would treat her miserable blind slave with more kindness than the defendant to whom the judgment ought to transfer him, CANNOT BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION!' The full compensation of the mistress for the loss of the services of the slave, is worthy of all 'consideration,' even to the uttermost farthing; 'public opinion' is omnipotent for her protection; but when the food, clothing, shelter, fire and lodging, medicine and nursing, comfort and entire condition and treatment of her poor blind slave throughout his dreary pilgrimage, is the question—ah! that, says the mouthpiece of the law, and the representative of 'public opinion,' 'CANNOT BE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION.' Protection of slaves by 'public opinion' among slaveholders!!

The foregoing illustrations of southern 'public opinion,' from the laws made by it and embodying it, are sufficient to show, that, so far from being an efficient protection to the slaves, it is their deadliest foe, persecutor and tormentor.

But here we shall probably be met by the legal lore of some 'Justice Shallow,' instructing us that the life of the slave is fully protected by law, however unprotected he may be in other respects. This assertion we meet with a point blank denial. The law does not, in reality, protect the life of the slave. But even if the letter of the law would fully protect the life of the slave, 'public opinion' in the slave states would make it a dead letter. The letter of the law would have been all-sufficient for the protection of the lives of the miserable gamblers in Vicksburg, and other places in Mississippi, from the rage of those whose money they had won; but 'gentlemen of property and standing' laughed the law to scorn, rushed to the gamblers' house, put ropes round their necks, dragged them through the streets, hanged them in the public square, and thus saved the sum they had not yet paid. Thousands witnessed this wholesale murder, yet of the scores of legal officers present, not a soul raised a finger to prevent it, the whole city consented to it, and thus aided and abetted it. How many hundreds of them helped to commit the murders, with their own hands, does not appear, but not one of them has been indicted for it, and no one made the least effort to bring them to trial. Thus, up to the present hour, the blood of those murdered men rests on that whole city, and it will continue to be a CITY OF MURDERERS, so long as its citizens, agree together to shield those felons from punishment; and they do thus agree together so long as they encourage each other in refusing to bring them to justice. Now, the laws of Mississippi were not in fault that those men were murdered; nor are they now in fault, that their murderers are not punished; the laws demand it, but the people of Mississippi, the legal officers, the grand juries and legislature of the state, with one consent agree, that the law shall be a dead letter, and thus the whole state assumes the guilt of those murders, and in bravado, flourishes her reeking hands in the face of the world.[[34]]

[Footnote [34]: We have just learned from Mississippi papers, that the citizens of Vicksburg are erecting a public monument in honor of Dr. H.S. Bodley, who was the ring-leader of the Lynchers in their attack upon the miserable victims. To give the crime the cold encouragement of impunity alone, or such slight tokens of favor as a home and a sanctuary, is beneath the chivalry and hospitality of Mississippians; so they tender it incense, an altar, and a crown of glory. Let the marble rise till it be seen from afar, a beacon marking the spot where law lies lifeless by the hand of felons; and murderers, with chaplets on their heads, dance and shout upon its grave, while 'all the people say, amen.']

The letter of the law on the statute book is one thing, the practice of the community under that law often a totally different thing. Each of the slave states has laws providing that the life of no white man shall be taken without his having first been indicted by a grand jury, allowed an impartial trial by a petit jury, with the right of counsel, cross-examination of witnesses, &c.; but who does not know that if ARTHUR TAPPAN were pointed out in the streets of New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston, Natchez, or St. Louis, he would be torn in pieces by the citizens with one accord, and that if any one should attempt to bring his murderers to punishment, he would be torn in pieces also. The editors of southern newspapers openly vaunt, that every abolitionist who sets foot in their soil, shall, if he be discovered, be hung at once, without judge or jury. What mockery to quote the letter of the law in those states, to show that abolitionists would have secured to them the legal protection of an impartial trial!