Page:A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853).djvu/118

 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 mestizoes, even in company with white persons, to meet together 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 vested 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 practices the law comes down, with unmerciful severity. A penalty is inflicted on the owner, but, with a rigor 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 dependent. 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 following, 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 canoo, or raise and breed, for the benefit of such slave, 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 moneys 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 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 labor be done on his own premises. Savannah, Augusta, and Sunbury, are places excepted.

In Virginia, "if the master shall permit his slave to hire himself out," the slave is to be apprehended, and the master to be fined. In an early act of the legislature of the orthodox and Presbyterian 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 sentences, provision is made for punishing the offender against society, rewarding the patriotic informer, and feeding the poor and destitute:

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 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 master who permits his slave to cultivate cotton for his own

use; or who licenses 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.