The owner may prosecute when a slave is rendered unfit for labor, by personal violence; and in the reports of these cases many painful facts come to light which would otherwise have remained for ever unknown. See Judicial Reports.
Prop. 8.—Slaves cannot redeem themselves or change masters.
Stroud says, "as to the right of redemption, this proposition holds good in all the slaveholding States; and is equally true as it respects the right to compel a change of masters, except in Louisiana. According to the new civil code of that State, the latter privilege may sometimes, perhaps, be obtained by the slave. But the master must first be convicted of cruelty—a task so formidable that it can hardly be ranked among possibilities; and secondly, it is optional with the judge, whether or not, to make the decree in favor of the slave."
If a slave should not obtain a decree in his favor, what has he to expect from a master exasperated against him, for making the attempt?
At Athens, so deservedly admired for the mildness of her slave laws, the door of freedom was opened widely. The abused slaves might fly to the Temple of Theseus, whence no
one had a right to take them, except for the purpose of publicly investigating their wrongs. If their complaints were well founded, they were either enfranchised, or delivered to more merciful hands.
In the Roman Empire, from the time of Adrian and the Antonines, slaves were protected by the laws, and undue severity being proved, they received freedom or a different master.
By the Code Noir of the French islands, a slave cruelly treated is forfeited to the crown; and the court, which judges the offence, has power to confer freedom on the sufferer. In the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, a slave on complaint of ill-usage obtains public protection; he may be manumitted, or change his master.
Prop. 9.—Slave unprotected in his domestic relations.
In proof of this, it is only necessary to repeat that the slave and his wife, and his daughters, are considered as the property of their owners, and compelled to yield implicit obedience—that he is allowed to give no evidence—that he must not resist any white man, under any circumstances which do not interfere with his master's interest—and finally, that public opinion ridicules the slave's claim to any exclusive right in his own wife and children.