Chapter VIII: The Good Old Times

“A refinement in humanity of doubtful policy.”

B. F. HUNT.

The author takes no pleasure in presenting to her readers the shocking details of the following case. But it seems necessary to exhibit what were the actual workings of the ancient law of South Carolina, which has been characterized as one “conformed to the policy, and approved by the wisdom,” of the fathers of that state, and the reform of which has been called “a refinement in humanity of doubtful policy.”

It is well, also, to add the charge of Judge Wilds, partly for its intrinsic literary merit, and the nobleness of its sentiments, but principally because it exhibits such a contrast as could scarcely be found elsewhere, between the judge’s high and indignant sense of justice, and the shameful impotence and imbecility of the laws under which he acted.

The case was brought to the author’s knowledge by a letter from a gentleman of Pennsylvania, from which the following is an extract:

Some time between the years 1807 and 1810, there was lying in the
harbor of Charleston a ship commanded by a man named Slater. His
crew were slaves: one of them committed some offence, not specified
in the narrative. The captain ordered him to be bound and laid upon
the deck; and there, in the harbor of Charleston, in the broad
daylight, compelled another slave-sailor to chop off his head. The
affair was public—notorious. A prosecution was commenced against
him; the offence was proved beyond all doubt,—perhaps, indeed, it
was not denied,—and the judge, in a most eloquent charge or rebuke
of the defendant, expressed his sincere regret that he could inflict
no punishment, under the laws of the state.

I was studying law when the case was published in “Hall’s American
Law Journal, vol. I.” I have not seen the book for twenty-five or
thirty years. I may be in error as to names, &c., but while I have
life and my senses the facts of the case cannot be forgotten.

The following is the “charge” alluded to in the above letter. It was pronounced by the Honorable Judge Wilds, of South Carolina, and is copied from Hall’s Law Journal, I. 67.

John Slater! You have been convicted by a jury of your country of
the wilful murder of your own slave; and I am sorry to say, the
short, impressive, uncontradicted testimony, on which that
conviction was founded, leaves but too little room to doubt its
propriety.

The annals of human depravity might be safely challenged for a
parallel to this unfeeling, bloody and diabolical transaction.

You caused your unoffending, unresisting slave to be bound hand and
foot, and, by a refinement in cruelty, compelled his companion,
perhaps the friend of his heart, to chop his head with an axe, and
to cast his body, yet convulsing with the agonies of death, into the
water! And this deed you dared to perpetrate in the very harbor of
Charleston, within a few yards of the shore, unblushingly, in the
face of open day. Had your murderous arm been raised against your
equals, whom the laws of self-defence and the more efficacious law
of the land unite to protect, your crimes would not have been
without precedent, and would have seemed less horrid. Your personal
risk would at least have proved, that though a murderer, you were
not a coward. But you too well knew that this unfortunate man, whom
chance had subjected to your caprice, had not, like yourself,
chartered to him by the laws of the land the sacred rights of
nature; and that a stern, but necessary policy, had disarmed him of
the rights of self-defence. Too well you knew that to you alone he
could look for protection; and that your arm alone could shield him
from oppression, or avenge his wrongs; yet, that arm you cruelly
stretched out for his destruction.

The counsel, who generously volunteered his services in your behalf,
shocked at the enormity of your offence, endeavored to find a
refuge, as well for his own feelings as for those of all who heard
your trial, in a derangement of your intellect. Several witnesses
were examined to establish this fact; but the result of their
testimony, it is apprehended, was as little satisfactory to his
mind, as to those of the jury to whom it was addressed. I sincerely
wish this defence had proved successful, not from any desire to save
you from the punishment which awaits you, and which you so richly
merit, but from the desire of saving my country from the foul
reproach of having in its bosom so great a monster.

From the peculiar situation of this country, our fathers felt
themselves justified in subjecting to a very slight punishment him
who murders a slave. Whether the present state of society require a
continuation of this policy, so opposite to the apparent rights of
humanity, it remains for a subsequent legislature to decide. Their
attention would ere this have been directed to this subject, but,
for the honor of human nature, such hardened sinners as yourself are
rarely found, to disturb the repose of society. The grand jury of
this district, deeply impressed with your daring outrage against the
laws both of God and man, have made a very strong expression of
their feelings on the subject to the legislature; and, from the
wisdom and justice of that body, the friends of humanity may
confidently hope soon to see this blackest in the catalogue of human
crimes pursued by appropriate punishment.

In proceeding to pass the sentence which the law provides for your
offence, I confess I never felt more forcibly the want of power to
make respected the laws of my country, whose minister I am. You have
already violated the majesty of those laws. You have profanely
pleaded the law under which you stand convicted, as a justification
of your crime. You have held that law in one hand, and brandished
your bloody axe in the other, impiously contending that the _one_
gave a license to the unrestrained use of the _other_.

But, though you will go off unhurt in person, by the present
sentence, expect not to escape with impunity. Your bloody deed has
set a mark upon you, which I fear the good actions of your future
life will not efface. You will be held in abhorrence by an impartial
world, and shunned as a monster by every honest man. Your
unoffending posterity will be visited, for your iniquity, by the
stigma of deriving their origin from an unfeeling murderer. Your
days, which will be but few, will be spent in wretchedness; and, if
your conscience be not steeled against every virtuous emotion, if
you be not entirely abandoned to hardness of heart, the mangled,
mutilated corpse of your murdered slave will ever be present in your
imagination, obtrude itself into all your amusements, and haunt you
in the hours of silence and repose.

But, should you disregard the reproaches of an offended world,
should you hear with callous insensibility the gnawings of a guilty
conscience, yet remember, I charge you, remember, that an awful
period is fast approaching, and with you is close at hand, when you
must appear before a tribunal whose want of power can afford you no
prospect of impunity; when you must raise your bloody hands at the
bar of an impartial omniscient Judge! Remember, I pray you,
remember, whilst yet you have time, that God is just, and that his
vengeance will not sleep forever!

The penalty that followed this solemn denunciation was a fine of _seven hundred pounds_, current money, or, in default of payment, imprisonment for seven years.

And yet it seems that there have not been wanting those who consider the reform of this law “_a refinement in humanity of doubtful policy_”! To this sentiment, so high an authority as that of Chancellor Harper is quoted, as the reader will see by referring to the speech of Mr. Hunt, in the last chapter. And, as is very common in such cases, the old law is vindicated, as being, on the whole, a surer protection to the life of the slave than the new one. From the results of the last two trials, there would seem to be a fair show of plausibility in the argument. For under the old law it seems that Slater had at least to pay seven hundred pounds, while under the new Eliza Rowand comes off with only the penalty of “a most sifting scrutiny.”

Thus, it appears, the penalty of the law goes with the murderer of the slave.

How is it executed in the cases which concern the life of the master? Look at this short notice of a recent trial of this kind, which is given in the _Alexandria_ (Va.) _Gazette_, of Oct. 23, 1852, as an extract from the _Charlestown_ (Va.) _Free Press_.

TRIAL OF NEGRO HENRY.

The trial of this slave for an attack, with intent to kill, on the
person of Mr. Harrison Anderson, was commenced on Monday and
concluded on Tuesday evening. His Honor, Braxton Davenport, Esq.,
chief justice of the county, with four associate gentlemen justices,
composed the court.

The commonwealth was represented by its attorney, Charles B.
Harding, Esq., and the accused ably and eloquently defended by Wm.
C. Worthington and John A. Thompson, Esqs. The evidence of the
prisoner’s guilt was conclusive. A majority of the court thought
that he ought to suffer the extreme penalty of the law; but, as this
required a unanimous agreement, he was sentenced to receive five
hundred lashes, not more than thirty-nine at one time. The physician
of the jail was instructed to see that they should not be
administered too frequently, and only when, in his opinion, he could
bear them.

In another paper we are told that the _Free Press_ says:

A majority of the court thought that he ought to suffer the extreme
penalty of the law; but, as this required a unanimous agreement, he
was sentenced to receive five hundred lashes, not more than
thirty-nine at any one time. The physician of the jail was
instructed to see that they should not be administered too
frequently, and _only_ when, in his opinion, he could bear them.
This _may seem_ to be a harsh and inhuman punishment; but, when we
take into consideration that it is in accordance with the _law of
the land_, and the further fact that the insubordination among the
slaves of that state has become truly alarming, we cannot question
the righteousness of the judgment.

Will anybody say that the master’s life is in more danger from the slave than the slave’s from the master, that this disproportionate retribution is meted out? Those who countenance such legislation will do well to ponder the solemn words of an ancient book, inspired by One who is no respecter of persons:

“If I have refused justice to my man-servant or maid-servant,
When they had a cause with me,
What shall I do when God riseth up?
And when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?
Did not he that made me in the womb make him?
Did not the same God fashion us in the womb?”

JOB 31:13–15.