Slave law

“ And last, the law treats the slave so fully as a rational and responsible human, that it even bestows on him the right of litigation against his own master, in one case. Any African setting up a plea of unlawful detention in bondage, against his master, is allowed to sue in forma pauperis, in the courts of law. How could the fact be more clearly defined, that the institution of slavery treats the slave as a rational human being, and gives the master property in nothing but his labour? ”

“ 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. ”

“ This law reveals the heart of slaveholders towards their slaves, their diabolical indifference to the most excruciating and protracted torments inflicted on them by 'any person;' it reveals, too, the relative protection afforded by 'public opinion' to the person of the slave, in appalling contrast with the vastly surer protection which it affords to the master's property in the slave. The wretch who cuts out the tongue, tears out the eyes, shoots off the arms, or burns off the feet of a slave, over a slow fire, cannot legally be fined more than five hundred dollars ”

“ Is man ever a creature to be trusted with wholly irresponsible power? And does not the slave system, by denying the slave all legal right of testimony, make every individual owner an irresponsible despot? Can anybody fall to make the inference what the practical result will be? If there is, as we admit, a public sentiment among you, men of honor, justice and humanity, is there not also another kind of public sentiment among the ruffian, the brutal and debased? And cannot the ruffian, the brutal, the debased, by slave law, own just as many slaves as the best and purest? ”

“ The effects of Slavery on the bond and Colonization on the free. Of the first we shall say but little, but will here repeat the language of a high-minded Virginian in the Legislature of that State, on the recent discussion of the slave question before that honorable body, who declared, that man could not hold property in man, and that the master held no right to the slave, either by a law of nature or a patentee from God, but by the will of society; which we declare to be an unjust usurpation of the rights and privileges of men. ”

“ And, further, the right to hold a slave having no foundation in the law of nature or the unwritten and common law, we are forced to the conclusion, that a slave, brought by his owner upon the soil of a territory before the territorial legislature has enacted laws establishing slavery, becomes of necessity free, for there is no local law of a municipal character under which he can be held as a slave. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, in being protected in his life and limbs against the violence of others, even of the master of his labour and liberty; and in being punishable himself for all violence committed against others; the slave is no less evidently regarded by law, as a member of the society, and not as a part of the irrational creation; as a moral person, and not as a mere article of property. ”

“ The Fugitive Slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign Slave Trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the People imperfectly supports the law itself. ”

“ Now, was there any thing more absurd in this passage, than to say that the slave-trade might be earned on with moderation; for, if yon could not rob or murder a single man with moderation, with what moderation could you pillage and wound a whole nation? In fact, the question of the abolition was simply a question of justice. It was only whether we should authorize by law, respecting Africa, the commission of crimes for which, in this country, we should forfeit our lives ”

“ 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, in the state to which the slave escapes, there be any state law or state regulation to prevent the owner of the slave from taking possession of his slave and carrying him away, such state law or state regulation violates the provision in the Constitution of the United States ”

“ It declared that the statutes and regulations concerning slaves were inapplicable to persons of color and although such were not entitled to social or political equality with white persons, they were given the right to own and dispose of property, to make contracts, to enjoy the fruits of their labor, to sue and be sued, and to receive protection under the law in their persons and property. ”

“ In other words, the status of slavery embraces every condition, from that in which the slave is known to the law simply as a-231- chattel, with no civil rights, to that in which he is recognised as a person for all purposes, save the compulsory power of directing and receiving the fruits of his labor. ”

“ We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on the loss of a kind master; and with good reason, for no creature on God's earth is left more utterly unprotected and desolate than the slave in these circumstances.
The child who has lost a father has still the protection of friends, and of the law; he is something, and can do something,—has acknowledged rights and position; the slave has none. The law regards him, in every respect, as devoid of rights as a bale of merchandise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Besides, the mere toleration of the slave trade could not make slavery itself—the right of property in man—lawful any where; not even on board the slave ship. Toleration of a wrong is not law. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the slave refuse to labor, the law will not interfere to compel him. ”

“ The slave-holder claims the slave as his Property. The very idea of a slave is, that he belongs to another, that he is bound to live and labor for another, to be another's instrument, and to make another's will his habitual law, however adverse to his own. ”

“ The document they produced was eventually signed, but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution—a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; ”

“ It is necessarily improvident and ruinous, because, as a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they practise or neglect to practise the primary duties of justice and humanity. The free-labor system conforms to the divine law of equality, which is written in the hearts and consciences of man, and therefore is always and everywhere beneficent.
The slave system is one of constant danger, distrust, suspicion, and watchfulness. ”

“ the law says you have the right to hold a nigger, but begging the law's pardon, it lies. Yes, Epps, when the law says that it's a liar, and the truth is not in it. Is every thing right because the law allows it? Suppose they'd pass a law taking away your liberty and making you a slave?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the slave escape, or refuse to labor, the slave code no more authorizes the government to issue legal process against the slave, to authorize the master to catch him, or compel him to labor, than it does against a horse for the same purpose.—The slave is held simply as property, by individual force, without legal process. ”

“ 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. ”

“ However much, therefore, we may deplore the existence of slavery in any part of the Union, as a national as well as a local evil, yet, as the right of the master to reclaim his fugitive slave is secured to him by the federal constitution, no good citizen, whose liberty and property is protected by that constitution, will interfere to prevent this provision from being carried into full effect, according to its spirit and effect ”

“ The emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in so far as chattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But although the freedman is no longer considered the property of the individual master, he is considered the slave of society, and all independent State legislation will share the tendency to make him such. The ordinances abolishing slavery, passed by the conventions under the pressure of circumstances, will not be looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of servitude. ”

“ That the abolition of slavery is within the sphere of legislation, I argue, secondly, from the fact, that slavery as a legal system, is the creature of legislation. The law by creating slavery, not only affirmed its existence to be within the sphere and under the control of legislation, but equally, the conditions and terms of its existence, and the question whether or not it should exist. ”

“ On the other hand, it was contended, that slaves are deemed persons, as well as property. They partake of the qualities of both. In being compelled to labour, not for himself, but for his master; in being vendible by one master to another; and, in being subject, at all times, to be restrained in his liberty, and chastised in his body, by the will of another, the slave may appear to be degraded from the human rank, and classed with the irrational animals, which fall under the denomination of property. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our northern free states denouncing slavery as a crime, confessedly inconsistent with their civil and religious principles, yet, for commercial and pecuniary considerations, deliberately entering into a compact with slaveholders tolerating a twenty years' perpetuation of the African slave trade, the rendition of fugitives, the suppression of servile insurrections, and allowing to the slaveholders a virtual property basis of representation. ”

“ All that they ask, is that equal moderation be shown on the other side. Let the case of the slaves be considered, as it is in truth, a peculiar one. Let the compromising expedient of the Constitution be mutually adopted, which regards them as inhabitants, but as debased by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants, which regards the slave as divested of two-fifths of the man. ”