All the Power of the owner over his Slave is held and exercised also by Overseers and Agents.

     WE have, thus far, considered chiefly the power of the slave owner. It has been seen, likewise, that essentially the same power is lodged in the hirer of a slave. Incidentally, the power of overseers and agents has been alluded to. But we must now take a more distinct view of this feature of slavery. It has been expressed thus:

     “All the power of the master over the slave may be exercised, not by himself only, in person, but by any one whom he may depute as his agent. (Stroud’s Sketch, p. 44.)

     Considering the judicial authority vested in the slave owner, whoever he may be, (drunk or sober,) and the duty of the “sheriffs” and public negro wbippers to execute his decisions, (as already noticed,) this additional power of delegating his magisterial dignity and authority to whomsoever (drunk or sober) he may think proper, becomes a very remarkable

one. Irresponsible himself, and absolute, he commits the same authority over the slave to a subordinate despot, responsible solely to himself.

     LOUISIANA, by express statute, enacts as follows “The condition of a slave BEING MERELY A PASSIVE ONE, his subordination to his master, AND ALL WHO REPRESENT HIM, is not susceptible of any modification or restriction, (except in what can excite the slave to the commission of crime,) in such manner that he owes to his master and to all his family a respect WITHOUT BOUNDS and an ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE, and he is consequently to execute all the orders which he receives from him or from them.” (1 Martin’s Digest, 616.)

     Thus does “the innocent legal relation” of slave ownership confer on every slave owner a power which no magistrate or government holds over him, or over any subject or citizen; and, not content with this, it clothes him with the prerogative of transferring this authority, not only by the sale of the slave, but by verbal commission while he yet owns him. His wife, his housekeeper, his overseer, and even his young children share his unlimited power and authority over the slave, though at the age of threescore! Instead of controlling his own children, the slave is controlled by the children of his master, and by hired overseers.

     The exception, in the statute just cited, informs us that when the slave is “incited to crime” by the commands of his tyrant, whom he may not resist, he may nevertheless be held responsible for the

crime! In its practical bearings, the law can effect nothing else, unless it be the martyrdom of the slave. Whatever crime he may be commanded to commit, he can lodge no information against his master, he can bear no testimony against him. If he persists in refusing to assist in the commission of the crime, his master may lawfully “chastise” him with the “moderate correction” that may cause his death, and then, if he “offers” resistance, he may be lawfully killed!

     Louisiana is said to be the only State with an express statute on the topic of the master’s delegated authority, but the usage, recognized by the Courts as law, universally exists. “In the other slave States,” says Stroud, (p. 44,) the subjoined extract from Mr. Stephen’s delineation of Slavery in the West Indies will, it is believed, accurately express the law and the practice:

     “‘The slave is liable to be coerced or punished by the whip, and to be tormented by every species of personal ill-treatment, subject only to the exceptions already mentioned, (i. e., the deprivation of life and limb,) by the attorney, manager, overseer, driver, and every other person to whose government and control the owner may choose to subject him, as fully as by the owner himself. Nor is any special mandate or express general power necessary for this purpose; it is enough that the infictor of the violence is set over the slave for the moment, or by the owner or by any of his delegates or sub-delegates, of whatever rank or character.’ (Stephen’s Slavery, p. 46.)

     This power of deputation by the master is one of the degrading and distinguishing features of negro slavery. It was not permitted by the laws of villeinage.” (Stroud, p. 45. See 9 Coke’s Reports, 76 A, &c. See Stephen, supra.)

     The following description of “overseers” is from William Wirt’s Life of Patrick Henry: Last and lowest, (i. e., of the different classes of society in Virginia,) a feculum of beings called overseers; the most abject, degraded, unprincipled race, always cap in hand to the Dons who employed them, and furnishing materials for the exercise of their pride, insolence, and spirit of domination.”

     The great majority of slaves, male and female, labor on plantations, under the charge of these “overseers.” The “house servants,” as already seen by the statute of Louisiana, are under absolute subjection to every member of the family. Slaves hired out, waiters at hotels, &c., are, in this particular, in no better condition. Almost every where, they are controlled by others, in addition to the direct control of their owners.