Page:A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853).djvu/80

74 of Slavery, p. 249. A woman sued for an injury done to her slave by the slave of the defendant. The injury was such as to render him entirely useless, his only eye being put out. The parish court decreed that she should recover twelve hundred dollars, that the defendant should pay a further sum of twenty-five dollars a month from the time of the injury; also the physician's bill, and two hundred dollars for the sustenance of the slave during his life, and that he should remain forever in the possession of his mistress. The case was appealed. The judge reversed the decision, and delivered the slave into the possession of the man whose slave had committed the outrage. In the course of the decision, the judge remarks, with that calm legal explicitness for which many decisions of this kind are remarkable, that

The principle of humanity, which would lead us to suppose that the mistress, whom he had 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 this case.

Another case, reported in Wheeler's Law, page 198, the author thus summarily abridges. It is Dorothee v. Coquillon et al. A young girl, by will of her mistress, was to have her freedom at twenty-one; and it was required by the will that in the mean time she should be educated in such a manner as to enable her to earn her living when free, her services in the mean time being bequeathed to the daughter of the defendant. Her mother (a free woman) entered complaint that no care was taken of the child's education, and that she was cruelly treated. The prayer of the petition was that the child be declared free at twenty-one, and in the mean time hired out by the sheriff. The suit was decided against the mother, on this ground,—that she could not sue for her daughter in a case where the daughter could not sue for herself were she of age,—the object of the suit being relief from ill-treatment during the time of her slavery, which a slave cannot sue for.

Observe, now, the following case of Jennings v. Fundeberg. It seems Jennings brings an action of trespass against Fundeberg for killing his slave. The case was thus: Fundeberg with others, being out hunting runaway negroes, surprised them in their camp, and, as the report says, "fired his gun towards them as they were running away, to induce them to stop." One of them, being shot through the head, was thus induced to stop,—and the master of the boy brought action for trespass against the firer for killing his slave.

The decision of the inferior court was as follows:

The court "thought the killing accidental, and that the defendant ought not to be made answerable as a trespasser." * * * * "When one is lawfully interfering with the property of another, and accidentally destroys it, he is no trespasser, and ought not to be answerable for the value of the property. In this case, the defendant was engaged in a lawful and meritorious service, and if he really fired his gun in the manner stated it was an allowable act."

The superior judge reversed the decision, on the ground that in dealing with another person's property one is responsible for any injury which he could have avoided by any degree of circumspection. "The firing … was rash and incautious." Does not the whole spirit of this discussion speak for itself?

See also the very next case in Wheeler's Law. Richardson v. Dukes, p. 202.

Trespass for killing the plaintiff's slave. It appeared the slave was stealing potatoes from a bank near the defendant's house. The defendant fired upon him with a gun loaded with buckshot, and killed him. The jury found a verdict for plaintiff for one dollar. Motion for a new trial.

''The Court. Nott'' J. held, there must be a new trial; that the jury ought to have given the plaintiff the value of the slave. That if the jury were of opinion the slave was of bad character, some deduction from the usual price ought to be made, but the plaintiff was certainly entitled to his actual damage for killing his slave. Where property is in question, the value of the article, as nearly as it can be ascertained, furnishes a rule from which they are not at liberty to depart.

It seems that the value of this unfortunate piece of property was somewhat reduced from the circumstance of his "stealing potatoes." Doubtless he had his own best

reasons for this; so, at least, we should infer from the following remark, which occurs in one of the reasonings of Judge Taylor, of N. Carolina.

"The act of 1786 (Iredell's Revisal, p. 588) does, in the preamble, recognize the fact, that many persons, by cruel treatment to their slaves, cause them to commit crimes for which they are executed. * * The cruel treatment here alluded to must consist in withholding from them the necessaries of life; and the crimes thus resulting are such as are calculated to furnish them with food and raiment."