Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/65

Rh The Mosaic law was as follows: "If a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish, he shall let him go free for his eye's sake. And if he smite out his man servant's tooth, or his maid servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." Exodus, xxi. 26, 27.

7.—The slave never allowed to resist a white man.

It is enacted in Georgia, "If any slave shall presume to strike any white man, such slave, upon trial and conviction before the justice, shall for the first offence, suffer such punishment as the said justice thinks fit, not extending to life or limb; and for the second offence, death." It is the same in South Carolina, excepting that death is there the punishment of the third offence.—However wanton and dangerous the attack upon the slave may be, he must submit; there is only one proviso—he may be excused for striking in defence of his master, overseer, &c. and of their property. In Maryland, a colored man, even if he be free, may have his ears cropped for striking a white man. In Kentucky, it is enacted that "if any negro, mulatto, or Indian, bond or free, shall at any time lift his or her hand, in opposition to any person not colored, they shall, the offence being proved before a justice of the peace, receive thirty lashes on his or her bare back, well laid on." There is a ridiculous gravity in the following section of a law in Louisiana: "Free people of color ought never to insult or strike white people, nor presume to conceive themselves equal to the whites; but on the contrary, they ought to yield to them on every occasion, and never speak or answer them but with respect, under the penalty of imprisonment, according to the nature of the offence."

Such laws are a positive inducement to violent and vicious white men to oppress and injure people of color. In this point of view, a negro becomes the slave of every white man in the community. The brutal drunkard, or the ferocious madman, can beat, rob, and mangle him with perfect impunity. Dr Torrey, in his "Portraiture of