Slave code

“ To this end we publish extracts from the southern slave code, which go to show that slavery subjects its victims to the absolute control of their erring fellow men--that it withholds from them marriage and the Bible--that it classes them with brutes and things--and annihilates the distinctions between mind and matter. ”

“ The legislative, executive, and judicial authorities are all in their hands—the preservation, propagation, and perpetuation of the black code of slavery—every law of the legislature becomes a link in the chain of the slave; every executive act a rivet to his hapless fate ”

“ The slave code allowed a much severer policy than was generally carried out, for it must be considered that the law was made to fit the worst cases, where such action was justifiable. Often the attitude of the master appeared harsher than it was really meant to be. ”

“ I say that we must not interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists, because the Constitution forbids it, and the general welfare does not require us to do so. We must not withhold an efficient Fugitive Slave law, because the Constitution requires us, as I understand it, not to withhold such a law. But we must prevent the outspreading of the institution, because neither the Constitution nor general welfare requires us to extend it. We must prevent the revival of the African slave trade, and the enacting by Congress of a Territorial slave code. ”

“ The paradox of the slaveholder's position and the fundamental injustice of it appear even in the slave codes and the arguments used in defense of the "peculiar institution." The slave codes treated the slave in one clause as a chattel, an irrational thing, and yet proceed to embody in the same code regulations against learning to read and write, theft, and murder, thus acknowledging that the slave is both rational and moral. Laws against teaching slaves were passed in South Carolina in 1834, in Georgia, 1829, Louisiana, 1829, Alabama, 1830 and Virginia, 1849. ”

“ Toombs, that a law should be enacted in which all offenses against slave property by persons fleeing to other States should be tried where the offense was committed, making the slave-code, in effect, the test of the criminality of the act,—an act which, in its essential character, might frequently be one of charity and good will. ”

“ It has been a problem to many, how the system of slavery in America should unite the two apparent inconsistencies of a code of slave-laws more severe than that of any other civilized nation, with an average practice at least as indulgent as any other; for, bad as slavery is at the best, it may yet be admitted that the practice, as a whole, has been less cruel in this country than in many. An examination into history will show us that the cruelty of the laws resulted from the effects of indulgent practice. ”

“ In the popular mind slaves were always considered personal property, and the spirit of the slave code itself embodied that conception as regarded all things save the question of inheritance.
With respect to the liberty of the slaves the code of [Pg 251] 1798 clearly shows that the existing type of slavery was purely rural, for the restrictions on slaves concerned only the plantation Negroes. Strictly understood, the slave was not to leave the farm of his owner without a pass from his master, the main purpose being to keep the Negroes from congregating on any one farm. ”

“ In the code of laws known as the "Duke's laws," enacted for the government of New York in 1665, there is a provision that "no Christian shall be kept in bond slavery, villeinage, or captivity, except such who shall be judged thereunto by authority, or such as willingly have sold or shall sell themselves," in which case a record of such servitude shall be entered in the court of sessions, "held for that jurisdiction where the master shall inhabit." This provision, borrowed, with some modifications, from the "Massachusetts Fundamentals," did not exempt heathen negroes and Indians from slavery. ”

“ The citizens of the commonwealth who were opposed to the institution were satisfied to confine themselves to mere words advocating the emancipation of slaves.
The State early adopted the slave code of Virginia in regard to the treatment of runaway slaves just as it did in [Pg 261] regard to the general legal rights of the bonded Negro but provided more drastic regulations in 1798. Any person who suspected a Negro of being a runaway slave could take him before a justice of the peace, and swear to his belief in the guilt of the accused. ”

“ They have under the slave code as administered, no legal protection; the show of it which the letter of the law, in some instances, affords, being designed rather to guard their value as property than their interests as men. [1] Outcasts in society, they are outlaws in the State. ”

“ At a later day the following kindred provision was added, in season to be reënacted by Congress in the same code.
“No slave manumitted agreeably to the laws of this State ... shall be entitled ... to give evidence against any white person, or shall be recorded as competent evidence to [Pg 273] manumit any slave petitioning for freedom.” [233]
And such is the law for Slavery at the national capital. ”

“ When in the early eighteenth century legislation was resumed in regard to negroes, it took the form of a slave code much like that of Connecticut but with an added act, borrowed perhaps from a Southern colony, providing that slaves charged with theft be tried by impromptu courts consisting of two or more justices of the peace or town officers, and that appeal might be taken to a court of regular session only at the master's request and upon his giving bond for its prosecution. Some of the towns, furthermore, added by-laws of their own for more thorough police. ”

“ No law has been passed under the commonwealth to ameliorate the black code of the colony of Virginia; on the contrary, new laws have been passed, adding to the oppression of the unfortunate negroes, and which have not only abridged the rights of humanity, but of the citizen. Such is the character of the law which restricts and to a great degree prohibits the master from manumitting his slave. ”

“ If the slaves are not men; if they do not possess human instincts, passions, faculties and powers; if they are below accountability, and devoid of reason; if for them there is no hope of immortality, no God, no heaven, no hell; if, in short, they are, what the Slave Code declares them to be, rightly "deemed, sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators and assigns, to all intents, constructions, [18] and purposes whatsoever;" ”

“ If any one should violate the person of a female slave, and should be seized in the house of her master; or if he should be convicted of having committed the crime anywhere else; if a slave, he shall receive two hundred lashes; if a freeman, fifty; and the latter shall be compelled to pay, in addition, thirty solidi to the master of the female slave. But if the master should have ordered the slave to commit the act, the latter shall undergo the penalty and scourging prescribed by a former law. ”

“ The first severe law respecting slaves, now to be met with in our code, is that of 1669, already mentioned, which declared that the death of a slave resisting his master, or other person correcting him by his order, happening by extremity of the correction, should not be accounted felony. ”

“ Here is a third clause, which, like the other two, makes no mention of slavery or slaves, in express terms; and yet, like them, was intelligently framed and mutually understood by the parties to the ratification, and intended both to protect the slave system and to restore runaway slaves. It alone makes slavery a national institution, a national crime, and all the people who are not enslaved, the body-guard over those whose liberties have been cloven down. ”

“ A new act was passed in that State in 1818, by which any person, who endeavors to enfranchise a slave by will, testament, contract, or stipulation, or who contrives indirectly to confer freedom by allowing his slaves to enjoy the profit of their labor and skill, incurs a penalty not exceeding one thousand dollars; and the slaves who have been the object of such benevolence, are ordered to be seized and sold at public outcry. ”

“ But by this constitution, 'no person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' This clause was expressly inserted to enable owners of slaves to reclaim them. This is a better security than any that now exists. No power is given to the General Government to interpose, with respect to the property in slaves now held by the states. ”

“ Besides, if the prohibition upon all persons, citizens as well as others, to bring slaves into a Territory, and a declaration that if brought they shall be free, deprives citizens of their property without due process of law, what shall we say of the legislation of many of the slaveholding States which have enacted the same prohibition? As early as October, 1778, a law was passed in Virginia, that thereafter no slave should be imported into that Commonwealth by sea or by land, and that every slave who should be imported should become free. ”

“ All these evils are abundantly stated in the evidence, and, it is therefore clear, that the above regulation would have a tendency to obtain protection for the slaves, in cases of unmerited or excessive punishment, on the part, of the overseer: for, by the 3d regulation, it would be the interest of the attorney to inquire into their complaints, and redress them, and not, as at present, to wink at their oppression; and by this regulation, he would be at hand and have time to do his duty. The slaves also would not be precluded by distance, from preferring their own complaints. ”

“ No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into society, or to the Lord’s Supper, till he previously comply with these rules concerning slavery.
Those who buy, sell, or give [slaves] away, unless on purpose to free them, shall be expelled immediately.
In 1801:
We declare that we are more than ever convinced of the great evil of African slavery, which still exists in these United States.
Every member of the society who sells a slave shall, immediately after full proof, be excluded from the society, &c. ”

“ On the south side of a boundary line, then, slavery may exist by force of positive law; while, on the north side, in the absence of any such law, slavery is unlawful. A slave passing out of a jurisdiction where slavery is legalized, into a jurisdiction where it is not, becomes free. ”

“ The constitution proceeds upon this doctrine when it provides for the recapture of fugitive slaves. Why did it not provide for the capture of a fugitive horse or ox? Why did it not provide that, if a horse or an ox should escape from a slave state into a free state, it should be delivered up, or be recoverable by legal process? Because horses and oxen are property, [Pg 196] by the common consent of mankind. It needed no law to make them property. They are property by the law of nations, by the English common law, by the law of every state in this Union,—while men and women are not. ”

“ How can a slave owe service? How can a slave owe labor? How could a slave make a contract? How could the master have a legal claim against a slave? And yet, the Supreme Court of the United States found no difficulty in upholding the Fugitive Slave Law by virtue of that clause. There were hundreds of decisions declaring that Congress had power to pass laws to carry that clause into effect, and it was carried into effect. ”

“ The clause in the Constitution relating to fugitives from labour, manifestly contemplates the existence of positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the slave, which no State law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control, or restrain. ”

“ The fathers who framed the American constitution supposed that in making provision for the abolition of the African slave-trade they were making provision for the abolition of slavery itself, and they incorporated this clause in the constitution, not to perpetuate the traffic in human flesh, but to bring that unnatural traffic to an end. ”

“ And be it further enacted, That until the people of said territory shall form a constitution and state government, and be admitted into the Union under the provisions of this act, there shall be neither slavery or involuntary servitude in said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any state, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her service or labor as aforesaid. ”

“ The debates in all the conventions for adopting the constitution of the United States, proceed upon the ground that slavery depends upon positive law for its existence. If it did not,—if a man who has a legal right to a slave in Virginia, has a legal right to him anywhere,—then the provision in the constitution, and the act of 1793 for recapturing fugitive slaves, would have been unnecessary. ”

“ Sometimes it is argued that this provision must be restricted to places within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Government. Such formerly was my own impression, often avowed in this Chamber; but I never doubted its complete efficacy to render Slavery unconstitutional in all such places, so that “no person” could be held as a slave at the national capital or in any national territory. Constitutionally, Slavery has always been an outlaw, wherever that provision of the Constitution was applicable. ”