Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/62

48 6.—The master has absolute power to punish a slave, &c. Stroud says, "There was a time in many, if not in all the slave holding districts of our country, when the murder of a slave was followed by a pecuniary fine only. In one State, the change of the law in this respect has been very recent. At the present date (1827) I am happy to say the wilful, malicious, deliberate murder of a slave, by whomsoever perpetrated, is declared to be punishable with death in every State. The evil is not that the laws sanction crime, but that they do not punish it. And this arises chiefly, if not solely, from the exclusion of the testimony, on the trial of a white person, of all those who are not white."

"The conflicting influences of humanity and prejudice are strangely contrasted in the law of North Carolina on this subject. An act passed in 1798, runs thus: 'Whereas by another act of assembly, passed in the year 1774, the killing of a slave, however wanton, cruel, and deliberate, is only punishable in the first instance by imprisonment, and paying the value thereof to the owner, which distinction of criminality between the murder of a white person and one who is equally a human creature, but merely of a different complexion, is disgraceful to humanity, and degrading in the highest degree to the laws and principles of a free Christian, and enlightened country, be it enacted, &c. that if any person shall hereafter be guilty of wilfully and maliciously killing a slave, such offenders shall, upon the first conviction thereof, be adjudged guilty of murder, and shall suffer the same punishment as if he had killed a free man; Provided always, this act shall not extend to the person killing a slave outlawed by virtue of any act of assembly of this state, or to any slave in the act of resistance to his lawful owner or master, or to any slave DYING under MODERATE CORRECTION.'"

In the laws of Tennessee and Georgia, there is a similar proviso. Where could such a monstrous anomaly be