Page:A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853).djvu/119



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 permission 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 therefor, 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. . p. 798:

139. An indictment charging that a certain negro did hire her own time, contrary to the form of the statute, &c., is defective and must be quashed, because it was omitted to be charged that she has permitted 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. cxi. § 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.

In four of the states,—South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi,—emancipation can not be effected, except by a special act of the legislature 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 purposes, as much in a state of slavery as before they were manumitted." 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 parol, made and executed for the purpose of effecting, or endeavoring to effect, the manumission 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 manumitted, 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. &c., 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., under seal, attested by at least two credible witnesses, or acknowledged in the court of the county or corporation where the emancipator resides; proof satisfactory to the General Assembly must be