EXTRACTS FROM THE AMERICAN SLAVE CODE.
The following are mostly abridged selections from the statutes of the slave States and of the United States. They give but a faint view of the cruel oppression to which the slaves are subject, but a strong one enough, it is thought, to fill every honest heart with a deep abhorrence of the atrocious system. Most of the important provisions here cited, though placed under the name of only one State, prevail in nearly all the States, with slight variations in language, and some diversity in the penalties. The extracts have been made in part from Stroud's Sketch of the Slave Laws, but chiefly from authorized editions of the statute books referred to, found in the Philadelphia Law Library. As the compiler has not had access to many of the later enactments of the several States, nearly all he has cited are acts of an earlier date than that of the present anti-slavery movement, so that their severity cannot be ascribed to its influence.
The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things—is an article of property, a chattel personal—obtains as undoubted law in all the slave States.
The dominion of the master is as unlimited as is that which is tolerated by the laws of any civilized country in relation to brute animals—to quadrupeds; to use the words of the civil law.
Slaves cannot even contract matrimony.
Louisiana.—A slave is one who is in the power of his master, to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything, but what must belong to his master.
Slaves are incapable of inheriting or transmitting property.
Slaves shall always be reputed and considered real estate; shall be as such subject to be mortgaged, according to the rules prescribed by law, and they shall be seized and sold as real estate.
No owner of slaves shall hire his slaves to themselves, under a penalty of twenty-five dollars for each offence.