has never sinned throw the first stone.” They, as masters, might regret excesses
to which they have themselves carried punishment. He was not at all surprised
at the course of the Attorney-General, it was his wont to treat every case with
perfect fairness. He (Colonel H.) agreed that the inquiry should be--
1. Into the fact of the death.
2. The character or motive of the act.
The examination of the prisoner showed conclusively that the slave died a
natural death, and not from personal violence. She was chastised with a lawful
weapon; was in weak health, nervous, made angry by her punishment; excited.
The story was then a plain one; the community had been misled by the creations
of imagination, or the statements of interested slaves. The negro came into her
mistress's chamber; fell on the floor; medicine was given her; it was supposed she
was asleep, but she slept the sleep of death. To show the wisdom and policy of the
old Act of 1740 (this indictment is under both Acts, the punishment only altered
by that of 1821), he urged that a case like this was not murder at common law, nor
is the same evidence applicable at common law. There, murder was presumed from
killing; not so in the case of a slave. The Act of 1740 permits a master, when his slave
is killed in his presence, there being no other white person present, to exculpate him-
self by his own oath; and this exculpation is complete, unless clearly contravened by
the evidence of two white witnesses. This is exactly what the prisoner has done;
she has, as the law permits, by calling on God, exculpated herself. And her oath
is good, at least against the slander of her own slaves. Which, then, should pre-
vail--the clamours of others, or the policy of the law established by our colonial
ancestors? There would not be a tittle of positive evidence against the prisoner,
nothing but circumstantial evidence; and ingenious combination might be made
to lead to any conclusion. Justice was all that his client asked. She appealed
to liberal and high-minded men, and she rejoiced in the privilege of doing so, to
accord her that justice they would demand for themselves.
Mr. Deveaux was not cross-examined.
Evidence resumed.
Dr. E. W. North sworn.--(Cautioned by Attorney-General to avoid hearsay
evidence.) Was the family physician of Mrs. Rowand. Went on the 6th January,
at Mrs. Rowand's request, to see her at her mother's, in Logan-street; found her
down stairs in sitting-room; she was in a nervous and excited state; had been so
for a month before; he had attended her; she said nothing to witness of slave
Maria; found Maria in a chamber, up stairs, about one o'clock p.m.; she was
dead; she appeared to have been dead about an hour and a half; his attention
was attracted to a piece of pine-wood on a trunk or table in the room; it had a
large knot on one end; had it been used on Maria it must have caused con-
siderable contusion; other pieces of wood were in a box, and much smaller ones;
the corpse was lying one side in the chamber; it was not laid out; presumed she
died there; the marks on the body were, to witness's view, very slight, some
scratches about the face; he purposely avoided making an examination; observed
no injuries about the head; had no conversation with Mrs. Rowand about Maria;
left the house; it was on the 6th January last, the day before the inquest; knew
the slave before, but had never attended her.
Cross-examined.--Mrs. Rowand was in feeble health, and nervous; the slave
Maria was weak and emaciated in appearance; sudden death of such a person,
in such a state, from apoplexy or action of nervous system, not unlikely; her
sudden death would not imply violence; had prescribed asafœtida for Mrs. Rowand
on a former visit; it is an appropriate remedy for nervous disorders; Mrs.
Rowand was not of bodily strength to handle the pine knot so as to give a severe
blow; Mrs. Rowand has five or six children, the elder of them large enough to
have carried pieces of the wood about the room; there must have been a severe
contusion, and much extravasation of blood, to infer death from violence in this
case; apoplexy is frequently attended with extravasation of blood; there were
two Marias in the family.
In reply.--Mrs. Rowand could have raised the pine knot, but could not
have struck a blow with it; such a piece of wood could have produced death,
but it would have left its mark; saw the fellow Richard; he was quite capable of
giving such a blow.
body; found it in the wash-kitchen; it was the corpse of one feeble and
emaciated; partly prepared for burial; had the clothes removed; the body was
lacerated with stripes; abrasions about face and knuckles; skin knocked of;
passed his hand over the head; no bone broken; on request opened her thorax,
and examined the viscera; found them healthy; heart unusually so for one of her
age; no particular odour; some undigested food; no inflammation; removed the
scalp, and found considerable extravasation between scalp and skull; scalp blood-
shot; just under the scalp, found the effects of a single blow, just over the right
ear; after removing the scalp, lifted the bone; no rupture of any blood-vessel;
some softening of the brain in the upper hemisphere; there was considerable extra-
vasation under the scalp, the result of a succession of blows on the top of the head;
this extravasation was general, but that over the ear was a single spot; the butt-
end of a cow-hide would have sufficed for this purpose; an ordinary stick, a
heavy one, would have done it; a succession of blows on the head, in a feeble
woman, would lead to death, when, in a stronger one, it would not; saw
no other appearance about her person to account for her death, except those
blows.
Cross-examined.--To a patient in this woman's condition the blows would
probably cause death; they were not such as were calculated to kill an ordinary
person; witness saw the body twenty-four hours after her death; it was winter,
and bitter cold; no disorganisation, and the examination was therefore to be re-
lied on; the blow behind the ear might have resulted from a fall, but not the
blow on the top of the head, unless she fell head foremost; came to the conclu-
sion of a succession of blows, from the extent of the extravasation; a single blow
would have shown a distinct spot, with a gradual spreading or diffusion; one
large blow could not account for it, as the head was spherical; no blood on the
brain; the softening of the brain did not amount to much; in an ordinary dissec-
tion would have passed it over; anger sometimes produces apoplexy, which results
in death; blood between the scalp and the bone of the skull; it was evidently a
fresh extravasation; twenty-four hours would scarcely have made any change;
knew nothing of this negro before; even after examination, the cause of death is
sometimes inscrutable; not usual, however.
In reply.--Does not attribute the softening of the brain to the blows; it was
slight, and might have been the result of age; it was some evidence of impairment
of vital powers by advancing age.
Dr. A. P. Hayne.--At request of the coroner, acted with Dr. Porcher; was
shown into an out-house; saw on the back of the corpse evidences of contusion;
arms swollen and enlarged; laceration of body; contusions on head and neck;
between scalp and skull extravasation of blood, on the top of head, and behind the
right ear; a burn on the hand; the brain presented healthy appearance; opened
the body, and no evidences of disease in the chest or viscera; attributed the ex-
travasation of blood to external injury from blows--blows from a large and broad
and blunt instrument; attributes the death to those blows; supposes they were
adequate to cause death, as she was old, weak, and emaciated.
Cross-examined.--Would not have caused death in a young and robust person.
The evidence for the prosecution here closed, and no witnesses were called for
the defence.
The jury were then successively addressed, ably and eloquently, by J. L. Petigru
and James S. Rhett, Esqrs., on behalf of the prisoner, and H. Bailey, Esq., on
behalf of the State; and by B.F. Hunt, Esq., in reply. Of those speeches, and also
of the judge's charge, we have taken full notes, but have neither time nor space to
insert them here.
His Honour, Judge O'Neall, then charged the jury eloquently and ably on the
facts, vindicating the existing law, making death the penalty for the murder of a
slave; but, on the law, intimated to the jury that he held the Act of 1740 so far
still in force as to admit of the prisoner's exculpation by her own oath, unless
clearly disproved by the oaths of two witnesses; and that they were, therefore, in
his opinion, bound to acquit; although he left it to them, wholly, to say whether
the prisoner was guilty of murder, killing in sudden heat and passion, or not
guilty.
The jury then retired, and, in about twenty or thirty minutes, returned with a
verdict of “Not Guilty.”
There are some points which appear in this statement of the
trial, especially in the plea for the defence. Particular attention
is called to the following passage:--
Fortunately (said the lawyer), the jury were of the country; acquainted
with our policy and practice; composed of men too honourable to be led astray
by the noise and clamour out of doors. All was now as it should be; at least, a
court of justice had assembled to which his client had fled for refuge and safety;
its threshold was sacred; no profane clamours entered there; but legal investi-
gation was had of facts.
From this it plainly appears that the case was a notorious
one; so notorious and atrocious as to break through all the
apathy which slave-holding institutions tend to produce, and to
surround the court-house with noise and clamour.
From another intimation in the same speech, it would appear
that there was abundant testimony of slaves to the direct fact--
testimony which left no kind of doubt on the popular mind.
Why else does he thus earnestly warn the jury?
He warned the jury that they were to listen to no evidence but that of free
white persons, given on oath in open Court; they were to imagine none that came
not from them. It was for this that they were selected; their intelligence putting
them beyond the influence of unfounded accusations, unsustained by legal proof;
of legends of aggravated cruelty, founded on the evidence of negroes, and arising
from weak and wicked falsehoods.
See also this remarkable admission: “Truth had been dis-
torted in this case, and murder manufactured out of what was
nothing more than ORDINARY DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE.” If the
reader refers to the testimony, he will find it testified that the
woman appeared to be about sixty years old; that she was much
emaciated; that there had been a succession of blows on the
top of her head, and one violent one over the ear; and that, in
the opinion of a surgeon, these blows were sufficient to cause
death. Yet the lawyer for the defence coolly remarks that
“murder had been manufactured out of what was ordinary
domestic discipline.” Are we to understand that beating feeble
old women on the head, in this manner, is a specimen of
ordinary domestic discipline in Charleston? What would have
been said if any anti-slavery newspaper at the North had made
such an assertion as this? Yet the Charleston Courier reports
this statement without comment or denial. But let us hear the
lady's lawyer go still further in vindication of this ordinary
domestic discipline: “Chastisement must be inflicted until
subordination is produced; and the extent of the punishment
is not to be judged by one's neighbours, but by himself. The
event, in this case, has been unfortunate and sad.” The
lawyer admits that the result of thumping a feeble old woman
on the head has, in this case, been “unfortunate and sad.”
The old thing had not strength to bear it, and had no greater
regard for the convenience of the family and the reputation of
“the institution” than to die, and so get the family and the
community generally into trouble. It will appear from this
that in most cases where old women are thumped on the head,
they have stronger constitutions--or more consideration.
Again he says, “When punishment is due to the slave, the
master must not be held to strict account for going an inch
beyond the mark.” And finally, and most astounding of all,
comes this: “He bade the jury remember the words of Him who
spake as never man spake--`Let him that hath never
sinned throw the first stone. They, as masters, might
regret excesses to which they themselves might have carried
punishment.”
What sort of an insinuation is this? Did he mean to say
that almost all the jurymen had probably done things of the
same sort, and therefore could have nothing to say in this case?
and did no member of the jury get up and resent such a
charge? From all that appears, the jury acquiesced in it as
quite a matter of course; and the Charleston Courier quotes it
without comment, in the record of a trial which it says “will
show to the world how the law extends the ægis of her pro-
tection alike over the white man and the humblest slave.”
Lastly, notice the decision of the judge, which has become
law in South Carolina. What point does it establish? That
the simple oath of the master, in face of all circumstantial
evidence to the contrary, may clear him, when the murder of a
slave is the question. And this trial is paraded as a triumphant
specimen of legal impartiality and equity! “If the light that
is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GOOD OLD TIMES.
“A refinement in humanity of doubtful policy.”
--B. F. Hunt. The author takes no pleasure in presenting to her readers the
shocking details of the following case. But it seems necessary
to exhibit what were the actual workings of the ancient law of
South Carolina, which has been characterised as one “conformed
to the policy, a
nd approved by the wisdom,” of the fathers of
that State, and the reform of which has been called “a refinement
in humanity of doubtful policy.”
It is well, also, to add the charge of Judge Wilds, partly for
its intrinsic literary merit and the nobleness of its sentiments,
but principally because it exhibits such a contrast as could
scarcely be found elsewhere between the judge's high and indig-
nant sense of justice and the shameful impotence and imbecility
of the laws under which he acted.
The case was brought to the author's knowledge by a letter
from a gentleman of Pennsylvania, from which the following is
an extract:--
Some time between the years 1807 and 1810, there was lying in the harbour of
Charleston a ship commanded by a man named Slater. His crew were slaves;
one of them committed some offence, not specified in the narrative. The captain
ordered him to be bound and laid upon the deck; and there, in the harbour of
Charleston, in the broad daylight, compelled another slave-sailor to chop off his
head. The affair was public--notorious. A prosecution was commenced against
him; the offence was proved beyond all doubt--perhaps, indeed, it was not
denied--and the judge, in a most eloquent charge or rebuke of the defendant,
expressed his sincere regret that he could inflict no punishment, under the laws
of the State.
I was studying law when the case was published in “Hall's American Law
Journal,” vol. i. I have not seen the book for twenty-five or thirty years. I may
be in error as to names, &c., but while I have life and my senses the facts of the
case cannot be forgotten.
The following is the “charge” alluded to in the above letter.
It was pronounced by the Honourable Judge Wilds, of South
Carolina, and is copied from Hall's Law Journal, i. 67:--
John Slater! You have been convicted by a jury of your country of the wilful
murder of your own slave; and I am sorry to say, the short, impressive, and un-
contradicted testimony on which that conviction was founded, leaves but too little
room to doubt its propriety.
The annals of human depravity might be safely challenged for a parallel to this