Page:A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853).djvu/104

98 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 honorable to be led astray by the noise and clamor 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 clamors entered there; but legal investigation 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 clamor.

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 distorted in this case, and murder manufactured out of what was nothing more than ." 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 antislavery 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 neighbors, but by himself. The event,, 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,—'.' 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 now the law extends the ægis of her protection alike over the while 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!"