Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/54

40 12. The whole power of the laws is exerted to keep slaves in a state of the lowest ignorance.

13. ''There is in this country a monstrous inequality of law and right. What is a trifling fault in the white man, is considered highly criminal in the slave; the same offences which cost a white man a few dollars only, are punished in the negro with death.''

14. The laws operate most oppressively upon free people of color.

1.—Slavery hereditary and perpetual.

In Maryland the following act was passed in 1715, and is still in force: "All negroes and other slaves, already imported, or hereafter to be imported into this province, and all children now born, or hereafter to be born, of such negroes and slaves, shall be slaves during their natural lives." The law of South Carolina is, "All negroes, Indians, (free Indians in amity with this government, and negroes, mulattoes, and mestizoes, who are now free, excepted,) mulattoes or mestizoes, who now are, or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their issue born, or to be born, shall be and remain forever hereafter absolute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the mother." Laws similar exist in Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In consequence of these laws, people so nearly white as not to be distinguished from Europeans, may be, and have been, legally claimed as slaves.

2.—Labor compulsory and uncompensated, &c.

In most of the slave States the law is silent on this subject; but that it is the established custom is proved by laws restraining the excessive abuse of this power, in some of the States. Thus in one State there is a fine of ten shillings, in another of two dollars, for making slaves labor on Sunday, unless it be in works of absolute necessity, or the necessary occasions of the family. There is likewise a law which provides that "any master, who withholds proper sustenance, or clothing, from his slaves, or overworks them, so as to injure their health, shall upon sufficient information [here lies the rub] being laid before the grand jury, be by said jury presented;