slaves would prove a dangerous excitement to those still in
bondage.
For this reason, the American slave-code, which, as we have
already seen, embraces, substantially, all the barbarities of that
of ancient Rome, has added to it a set of laws more cruel
than any which ancient and heathen Rome ever knew--laws
designed to shut against the slave his last refuge--the humanity
of his master. The master, in ancient Rome, might give his
slave whatever advantages of education he chose, or at any time
emancipate him, and the State did not interfere to prevent.*
But in America the laws, throughout all the slave States,
most rigorously forbid, in the first place, the education of the
slave. We do not profess to give all these laws, but a few
striking specimens may be presented. Our authority is Judge
Stroud's “Sketch of the Laws of Slavery.”
The legislature of South Carolina, in 1740, enounced the
following preamble:
Stroud's Sketch, p. 88.
“Whereas, the having of slaves taught to write, or
suffering them to be employed in writing, may be
attended with great inconveniences;” and enacted that the crime
of teaching a slave to write, or of employing a slave as a scribe,
should be punished by a fine of one hundred pounds, current
money. If the reader will turn now to the infamous “pro-
tective” statute, enacted by the same legislature, in the same
year, he will find that the same penalty has been appointed for
the cutting out of the tongue, putting out of the eye, cruel scalding,
&c., of any slave, as for the offence of teaching him to write!
That is to say, that to teach him to write, and to put out his
eyes, are to be regarded as equally reprehensible.
That there might be no doubt of the “great and fundamental
policy” of the State, and that there might be full security
against the “great inconveniences” of “having of slaves taught
to write,” it was enacted, in 1800, “That assemblies of slaves,
free negroes, &c., * * * * * * *
for the purpose of mental instruction, in a confined or secret
place, &c. &c., is [are] declared to be an unlawful meeting;”
Stroud's Sketch, p. 89. 2 Brevard's Digest, pp. 254-5.
and the officers are required to enter such con-
fined places, and disperse the “unlawful assem-
blage,” inflicting, at their discretion, “such
corporal punishment, not exceeding twenty lashes,
upon such slaves, free negroes, &c., as they may judge necessary
for deterring them from the like unlawful assemblage in future.”
Stroud, pp. 88, 89.
The statute-book of Virginia is adorned with a
law similar to the one last quoted.
The offence of teaching a slave to write was early punished,
in Georgia as in South Carolina, by a pecuniary fine. But the
city of Savannah seems to have found this penalty insufficient
to protect it from “great inconveniences,” and we learn, by a
quotation in the work of Judge Stroud, from a number of The
Stroud's Sketch, pp. 89, 90.
Portfolio, that “the city has passed an ordinance,
by which any person that teaches any person of
colour, slave or free, to read or write, or causes such person to
be so taught, is subjected to a fine of thirty dollars for each offence;
and every person of colour who shall keep a school, to teach
reading or writing, is subject to a fine of thirty dollars, or to be
imprisoned ten days, and whipped thirty-nine lashes.”
Secondly. In regard to religious privileges:--
The State of Georgia has enacted a law, “to protect religious
societies in the exercise of their religious duties.” This law,
after appointing rigorous penalties for the offence of interrupting
or disturbing a congregation of white persons, concludes in the
following words:--
Stroud, p. 92. Prince's Digest, p. 342.
No congregation or company of negroes, shall, under pre-
Act regulating patrols.
“The Act regulating patrols,” as quoted by the editor of
Prince's Digest, empowers every justice of the peace to disperse
Stroud, p. 93. Prince's Digest, p. 447.
any assembly or meeting of slaves which may dis-
turb the peace, &c., of His Majesty's subjects, and
permits that every slave found at such a meeting
shall “immediately be corrected, without trial, by receiving
on the bare back twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch, or cow-
skin.”
The history of legislation in South Carolina is significant.
An Act was passed in 1800, containing the following section:--
It shall not be lawful for any number of slaves, free negroes, mulattoes, or
Stroud, p. 93. 2 Brevard's Digest, 254, 255.
mestizoes, even in company with white persons, to meet
together and assemble for the purpose of mental instruction
or religious worship, either before the rising of the sun, or
after the going down of the same. And all magistrates, sheriffs, militia officers
&c., &c., are hereby invested with power, &c., for dispersing such assemblies, &c.
The law just quoted seems somehow to have had a prejudicial
effect upon the religious interests of the “slaves, free negroes,”
&c., specified in it; for, three years afterwards, on the petition
of certain religious societies, a “protective Act,” was passed,
which should secure them this great religious privilege; to wit,
that it should be unlawful, before nine o'clock, “to break into a
place of meeting, wherein shall be assembled the members of
any religious society of this State, provided a majority of them
shall be white persons, or otherwise to disturb their devotion,
unless such person shall have first obtained * * *
a warrant, &c.”
Thirdly. It appears that many masters, who are disposed
to treat their slaves generously, have allowed them to accumulate
property, to raise domestic animals for their own use, and, in
the case of intelligent servants, to go at large, to hire their own
time, and to trade upon their own account. Upon all these prac-
tices the law comes down with unmerciful severity. A penalty is
inflicted on the owner, but, with a rigour quite accordant with
the tenor of slave-law, the offence is considered, in law, as that
of the slave, rather than that of the master; so that, if the
master is generous enough not to regard the penalty which is
imposed upon himself, he may be restrained by the fear of
bringing a greater evil upon his dependant. These laws are, in
some cases, so constructed as to make it for the interest of the
lowest and most brutal part of society that they be enforced, by
offering half the profits to the informer. We give the follow-
ing, as specimens of slave legislation on this subject:--
The law of South Carolina.
It shall not be lawful for any slave to buy, sell, trade, &c., for any goods, &c.,
without a license from the owner, &c.; nor shall any slave be permitted to
keep
any boat, periauger,* or canoe, or raise and breed, for the benefit of such slave,
Stroud, pp. 46, 47. James' Digest, 385, 386, Act of 1740.
any horses, mares, cattle, sheep, or hogs, under pain of forfeiting
all the goods, &c., and all the boats, periaugers, or canoes, horses,
mares, cattle, sheep, or hogs. And it shall be lawful for any
person whatsoever to seize and take away from any slave all such
goods, &c., boats, &c., &c., and to deliver the same into the
hands of any justice of the peace, nearest to the place where the
seizure shall be made; and such justice shall take the oath of the person making
such seizure concerning the manner thereof; and if the said justice shall be
satisfied that such seizure has been made according to law, he shall pronounce
and declare the goods so seized to be forfeited, and order the same to be sold at
public outcry, one half of the money arising from such sale to go to the State,
and the other half to him or them that sue for the same.
The laws in many other States are similar to the above; but the
2 Cobbs, Sig. 284.
State of Georgia has an additional provision, against
permitting the slave to hire himself to another for
his own benefit; a penalty of thirty dollars is imposed for
every weekly offence on the part of the master, unless the labour
be done on his own premises. Savannah, Augusta, and Sun-
bury, are places excepted.
In Virginia, “if the master shall permit his slave to hire
Stroud, p 47.
himself out,” the slave is to be apprehended, &c.,
and the master to be fined.
In an early Act of the Legislature of the orthodox and Pres-
byterian State of North Carolina, it is gratifying to see how the
judicious course of public policy is made to subserve the interests
of Christian charity--how, in a single ingenious sentence, pro-
vision is made for punishing the offender against society,
rewarding the patriotic informer, and feeding the poor and des-
titute:--
All horses, cattle, hogs, or sheep that, one month after the passing of this Act,
shall belong to any slave, or be of any slave's mark, in this State, shall be
Stroud's Sketch, 47.
seized and sold by the county wardens, and by them applied, the one
half to the support of the poor of the county, and the other half to
the informer.
In Mississippi, a fine of fifty dollars is imposed upon the
Stroud, p. 48.
master who permits his slave to cultivate cotton
for his own use; or who licences his slave to go at
large and trade as a freeman; or who is convicted of permitting
his slave to keep “stock of any description.”
To show how the above law has been interpreted by the
highest judicial tribunal of the sovereign State of Mississippi,
we repeat here a portion of a decision of Chief Justice Sharkey,
which we have elsewhere given more in full.
Independent of the principles laid down in adjudicated cases, our statute-law
prohibits slaves from owning certain kinds of property; and it may be inferred
that the legislature supposed they were extending the Act as far as it could be
necessary to exclude them from owning any property, as the prohibition includes
that kind of property which they would most likely be permitted to own without
interruption, to wit: hogs, horses, cattle, &c. They cannot be prohibited from
holding such property, in consequence of its being of a dangerous or offensive
character, but because it was deemed impolitic for them to hold property of any
description.
It was asserted, at the beginning of this head, that the per-
mission of the master to a slave to hire his own time is, by law,
considered the offence of the slave; the slave being subject to
prosecution therefore, not the master. This is evident from the
tenor of some of the laws quoted and alluded to above. It will
be still further illustrated by the following decisions of the Courts
of North Carolina. They are copied from the Supplement to the
U.S. Digest, vol. ii. p. 798:--
139. An indictment charging that a certain negro did hire her own time,
The State v. Clarissa, 5 Iredell,221.
contrary to the form of the statute, &c., is defective, and must be
quashed, because it was omitted to be charged that she was per-
mitted by her master to go at large, which is one essential part of
the offence.
140. Under the first clause of the thirty-first section of the 111th chapter of the
Revised Statutes, prohibiting masters from hiring to slaves their own time, the
master is not indictable; he is only subject to a penalty of forty dollars. Nor is
the master indictable under the second clause of that section; the process being
against the slave, not against the master.--Ib.
142. To constitute the offence under section 32 (Rev. Stat. c. xi. § 32) it is not
necessary that the slave should have hired his time; it is sufficient if the master
permits him to go at large as a freeman.
This is maintaining the ground that “the master can do no
wrong” with great consistency and thoroughness. But it is in
perfect keeping, both in form and spirit, with the whole course
of slave-law, which always upholds the supremacy of the master,
and always depresses the slave.
Fourthly. Stringent laws against emancipation exist in nearly
all the slave States.
Stroud, 147. Prince's Dig. 456. James' Dig. 98. Toulmin's Dig. 632. Miss. Rev. Code, 386.
In four of the States--South Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, and Mississippi--emancipation cannot
be effected, except by a special act of the legis-
lature of the State.
In Georgia, the offence of setting free “any slave, or slaves, in
any other manner and form than the one prescribed,” was
punishable, according to the law of 1801, by the forfeiture of
two hundred dollars, to be recovered by action or indictment; the slaves in question still remaining, “to all intents and pur-
poses, as much in a state of slavery as before they were manu-
mitted.”
Believers in human progress will be interested to know that
since the law of 1801 there has been a reform introduced into
this part of the legislation of the republic of Georgia. In 1818
a new law was passed, which, as will be seen, contains a grand
remedy for the abuses of the old. In this it is provided, with
endless variety of specifications and synonyms, as if to “let
suspicion double-lock the door” against any possible evasion,
that, “All and every will, testament, and deed, whether by way
of trust or otherwise, contract, or agreement, or stipulation, or
other instrument in writing or by parole, made and executed for
the purpose of effecting, or endeavouring to effect, the manumis-
sion of any slave or slaves, either directly * * * or indirectly,
or virtually, &c., &c., shall be, and the same are hereby declared
to be, utterly null and void.” And the guilty author of the
outrage against the peace of the State, contemplated in such
deed, &c., &c., “and all and
every person or persons concerned
in giving or attempting to give effect thereto * * * in any
way or manner whatsoever, shall be severally liable to a penalty
not exceeding one thousand dollars.”
It would be quite anomalous in slave-law, and contrary to the
“great and fundamental policy” of slave States, if the negroes
who, not having the fear of God before their eyes, but being
instigated by the devil, should be guilty of being thus manu-
mitted, were suffered to go unpunished; accordingly, the law
very properly and judiciously provides that “each and every
slave or slaves in whose behalf such will or testament, &c., &c.,
Stroud's Sketch, pp. 147-8. Prince's Dig. 466.
shall have been made, shall be liable to be arrested by
warrant, &c.; and, being thereof convicted, &c., shall
be liable to be sold as a slave or slaves by public
outcry; and the proceeds of such slaves shall be
appropriated, &c., &c.”
Judge Stroud gives the following account of the law of
Mississippi:--
The emancipation must be by an instrument in writing, a last will or deed, &c.,
Stroud's Sketch, p. 149. Miss. Rev. Code, p. 385-6 (Act June 18, 1822).
under seal attested by at least two credible witnesses, or ac-
knowledged in the court of the county or corporation where
the emancipator resides; proof satisfactory to the General
Assembly must be adduced that the slave has done some
meritorious act for the benefit of his master, or rendered
some distinguished service to the State; all which circumstances are but pre-
requisites, and are of no efficacy until a special Act of Assembly sanctions the eman-
cipation; to which may be added, as has been already stated, a saving of the rights
of creditors, and the protection of the widow's thirds.
The same pre-requisite of “meritorious services, to be adjudged
of and allowed by the county court,” is exacted by an Act of
the General Assembly of North Carolina; and all slaves eman-
cipated contrary to the provisions of this Act are to be com-
mitted to the jail of the county, and at the next court held for
that county are to be sold to the highest bidder.
But the law of North Carolina does not refuse opportunity
for repentance, even after the crime has been proved: accord-