If a slave strike a white, he is to be condemned to death; but if a master kill his slave by torture, no white witnesses being present, he may clear himself by his own oath. (Louisiana.)—Just and equal!
The law decrees fine and imprisonment to the person who shall release the servant of another from the torture of the iron collar. (Louisiana.)—Just and equal!
It decrees a much smaller fine, without imprisonment, to the man who shall torture him with red-hot irons, cut out his tongue, put out his eyes, and scald or maim him. (Ibid.)—Just and equal!
It decrees the same punishment to him who teaches him to write as to him who puts out his eyes.—Just and equal!
As it might be expected that only very ignorant and brutal people could be kept in a condition like this, especially in a country where every book and every newspaper are full of dissertations on the rights of man, they therefore enact laws that neither he nor his children, to all generations, shall learn to read and write.—Just and equal!
And as, if allowed to meet for religious worship, they might concert some plan of escape or redress, they enact that “no congregation of negroes, under pretence of divine worship, shall assemble themselves; and that every slave found at such meetings shall be immediately corrected, without trial, by receiving on the bare back twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch or cowskin.” (Law of Georgia. Prince’s Digest, p. 447.)—Just and equal!
Though the servant is thus kept in ignorance, nevertheless in his ignorance he is punished more severely for the same crimes than freemen.—Just and equal!
By way of protecting him from over-work, they enact that he shall not labor more than five hours longer than convicts at hard labor in a penitentiary!
They also enact that the master or overseer, not the slave, shall decide when he is too sick to work.—Just and equal!
If any master, compassionating this condition of the slave, desires to better it, the law takes it out of his power, by the following decisions: