Tate v. O’Neal, 1 Hawks, 418. U. S. Dig. Sup. 2, p. 797, § 121.
In the same spirit it has been held in North Carolina that patrols (night watchmen) are not liable to the master for inflicting punishment on the slave, unless their conduct clearly demonstrates malice against the master.
State v. Maner, 2 Hill’s Rep. 453. Wheeler’s Law of Slavery, page 243.
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 of the two States of South and North Carolina; and it is difficult to say which of these decisions has the preëminence for cool legal inhumanity. That of South Carolina reads thus.
Judge O’Neill says:
The criminal offence of assault and battery can not, at common law, be committed 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 of 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.
See State v. Hale. Wheeler, p. 239. 2 Hawk. N. C. Rep. 582.
What declaration of the utter indifference of the state to the 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.
1 Rev. Code 448.