Slaves are better protected as PROPERTY, than they are as SENTIENT BEINGS.

     IT has been represented that the slaves are sufficiently protected from outrage and murder on the part of those who are not their owners, by the fact that slave property is, of course, protected by law from such depredations, and that the interest of the master affords a guaranty for the enforcement of such laws.

     In our researches after the legal protection of slaves, in the preceding chapters, a large portion of all the legal proceedings that have come before us have been found to be of this character. Under the head of “Masters’ and others’ liabilities for maltreating their slaves,” we have met, chiefly, with suits of masters against the depredators upon their property! And what purported to be criminal prosecutions, we have found, on inspection, to be State actions to prevent “damage” to the slaveholder. But we come

now to consider, directly, the laws avowedly framed for that object.

     “Slaves, being objects of property, if injured by third persons, their owners may bring suit and recover damages for the injury. This is a maxim of the common law, in respect to property in general, and it may therefore be assumed to be the law of all the slaveholding States, in regard to slaves also.” (Stroud’s Sketch, p. 59.)

     MARYLAND.—Decision of Supreme Court: “There must be a loss of service, or at least a diminution of the faculty to labor, to warrant an action by the master.” (1 Harris & Johnson’s Reports, 4; Cornfute vs. Dale. Stroud, p. 59. Wheeler, p. 239.)

     SOUTH CAROLINA.—Act of 1740: “If any negro or other slave who shall be employed in the lawful business of his master, owner, overseer, &c., shall be beaten, &c., by any person or persons not having sufficient cause or authority for so doing, and shall be maimed, or disabled by such beating from performing his or her work, such person or persons, so offending, shall forfeit and pay to the owner or owners of such slaves, the sum of fifteen shillings current money per diem, for every day of his lost time, and also the charge of the cure of such slave.” (2 Brevard’s Digest, 231-2.)

     The workings of this law will appear in the following:

     Constitutional Court of Appeals, South Carolina, 1796. Sims White vs. James Chambers.—“Special action in the case for beating the plaintiff’s negro

Man.” The negro was charged by his master with the care of a fishing-canoe, with strict orders not to let any one have it. The defendant persisted in taking it away, and the negro persisted in forbidding him, “whereupon, defendant struck him a blow with his fist, then took a paddle, knocked him down, and afterwards beat him severely, which laid him up for several days, before he was able to go about his business again.” Verdict for the plaintiff. Damages £5, and costs. (2 Bay’s Reports, 70.)

     A similar law exists in—

     LOUISIANA.—(Statute.) If the slave (maimed, &c.) be for ever rendered unable to work, the offender shall be compelled to pay the value of said slave, according to the appraisement made by two freeholders, appointed by each of the parties; and the slave thus disabled shall for ever be maintained at the expense of the person who shall have thus disabled him, which person shall be compelled to maintain and feed him, agreeably to the duties of masters and slaves, as ordered by this Act.” (1 Martin’s Digest, 630-2.)

     NORTH CAROLINA.—It has been held that patrols are not liable to the master for inflicting punishment on the slave, unless their conduct clearly demonstrates MALICE AGAINST THE MASTER.” (1 Hawks’ Reports, 418, Tate vs. O’Neal.)

     VIRGINIA.—Supreme Court of Appeals. May vs. Brown and Boisseau. Action of trespass, &c., for breaking into his close, and beating several of his slaves, so that he was deprived of their services for a long time.

The defense in mitigation of damages was, that plaintiff had given a general permission to BROWN (though not in his employ as overseer) to VISIT his negro quarters, and chastise any of his slaves who might be found acting improperly! This defense failed, because BOISSEAU, who had inflicted the beating, had received no such permission from the plaintiff. (1 Munford’s Reports, 288. Stroud’s Sketch, pp. 59-60. Wheeler’s Law of Slavery, p. 248.)

     The workings of the principle of delegated authority are signally exemplified in this last case.

     In Wheeler’s Law of Slavery, the division or chapter entitled, “Of the liability of others to the master for abusing his slave,” occupies about 27 pages. Some of the cases we have cited already. Under this head are classed several State prosecutions for crime; viz: State vs. Hale, State vs. Maner, State vs. Mann, (before Judge Ruffin,) State vs. Cheatwood, State of Mississippi vs. Jones, and Commonwealth of Virginia vs. Carver, which we have before cited in our 13th and 14th Chapters. Under this same classification, we found and cited also a number of civil prosecutions for killing slaves, some of whom were runaways.

     We will here glance hastily at a few other decisions of the same class.

     Smith vs. Hancock, 4 Bibb’s Ky. Rep., 222.—“Held by the Court that in an action of trespass for beating a slave, the property of the plaintiff, whereby he died, the defendant may justify by showing that the slave was at an unlawful assembly, combining

to rebel, and that he refused to surrender, and resisted by force.” (Wheeler, p. 239.)

     Meetings of slaves for religious worship or mental instruction are “unlawful assemblies,” as will be shown in the proper place.

     In the case of Skidmore vs. Smith, the harboring of slaves was the ground of complaint. (Wheeler, p. 248.) It will not be claimed that there is any valuable protection to the slave in this.

     Crawford vs. Cheney, A. D. 1824, 15 Martin’s Louisiana Rep., 142, was “an action brought to recover the price of a negro whom the plaintiff charges the defendant with having shot and killed.” The testimony, it was argued, was weak. Judge Porter said: “The act charged here is one rarely committed in the presence of witnesses;” (owing, he might have added, to the law excluding colored witnesses.) He therefore allowed presumptive evidence to support the verdict.” (Wheeler, p. 249.)

     Jourdan vs. Patten, 1818; 5 Martin’s Louisiana Rep., 615.—A suit for damages by injuring a slave, who was made blind by the assault. The defendant was adjudged to pay the price of the slave, and to take possession of him, as his property. Marginal note, (as a rule of law established:) “If, on an injury to his slave, the plaintiff recovers his full value, the property is transferred to the defendant, on payment of the judgment.” (Wheeler, p. 249.) And so the disabled slave is “transferred” from perhaps a kind master or mistress, and from the presence of his wife and children, and the scenes of his childhood,

and turned over to the tender mercies of his persecutor, rendered the more bitter against him for the losses sustained in the transaction, and the prospect of receiving no valuable service from him! And this is the protection (in this exigency) afforded to the slave by his master’s right of prosecuting his assailant!

     The Court, it seems, were not unaware of the effects of this decision. In making it, Judge Matthews said: “The principle of humanity, which would lead us to suppose that the mistress, whom he had so long served, would treat her miserable blind slave with more kindness than the defendant, to whom the judgment ought to transfer him, cannot be taken into consideration, in deciding the case.” And so the judgment of the “Parish Court” (which had decreed the payment of the price of the slave, with an additional annuity for his sustenance, and to remain with the plaintiff) was reversed. (Ib.)

     The benefit to the slave of this protection of slave property is sufficiently apparent. It is the master that is protected in his property, not the slave in his right to security. The award is to his master, not to him. It is for the “loss of service” or “capacity to labor,” not for indignities and sufferings endured; it is for the injury of a working beast, not of a man; for in this the maxim of the civil law holds good— the slave is not capable of being injured!” Property damaged, or “malice against the master,” constitute the offense-compensation to the master is the redress! The “legal relation” of owner and property

is worthily honored and expressed in all this. Incidentally and remotely, the slave, it may be, in some instances, is protected by this from injuries that would otherwise cripple or kill him. The dread of the bill of “damages” may be some restraint. Slender as it is, it is the best, if not the only protection afforded to him by the law.

     In one important and comprehensive view, this incidental and dubious protection, if it be such, is an injury to the slave in the long run, and on the whole. It not only certifies and sanctions his degradation to the condition of a brute, but, in so doing, it stands in the way of any suitable legislative and judicial protection. It is regarded as a substitute or equivalent for it. It not only prevents proper enactments and processes, but it vitiates those in existence and in use. We have seen how it confounds the criminal with the civil prosecutions for maltreating slaves, classifies indictments for murder under the head of liabilities of others to the master for abusing his slave;” makes the penal code the instrument of the slave owner, and seduces even the better portion of the judges, as in the case of “the State vs. Hale,” (Wheeler, pp. 239-43,) while making the most favorable and merciful decisions known to slave jurisprudence, into the lamentable expedient of grounding their decisions upon “the interests” of the owner, and “the value of slave property,” instead of the majesty of violated law, and the sacredness of human life; or, perhaps, commingling incongruously the two classes of considerations!

     As a matter-of-fact result of all this, we may well be assured that a judiciary and a community accustomed to award “damages” to a slave owner for the maiming and killing of his slave, will not long continue to prosecute with efficiency any other—any criminal processes for the same acts. One punishment for one misdemeanor will be accounted sufficient. If the one is inflicted, the other will, as a general if not a universal fact, be withheld or evaded. On the first announcement of a barbarous or murderous outrage upon a slave, human nature even among slaveholders will gush forth, in demands for justice upon the perpetrator. An indictment for murder may be talked of, or even resorted to. In the mean time comes the “owner” with his suit for damages for loss of property! All eyes are directed to watch the result. The high tone of moral indignation gives place to an anxiety for the pending issue of dollars and cents! If the defendant loses his case and pays the equivalent, the public feeling is appeased or modified. Perhaps a sympathy is got up in the defendant’s favor. The indictment for murder slumbers, or results in an acquittal or a pardon. The man is not to be fined five hundred dollars and then hanged! And in a community wherein slaveholders administer the law, the prosecution for damages will be deemed of paramount importance.