The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  reputed, and adjudged in law, to be chattels personal in the

  hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors,

  2 Brev. Dig. 229 Prince's Digest, 446.

  administrators, and assigns, to all intents, con-

  structions and purposes whatsoever.” The

  law of Georgia is similar.

  Let the reader reflect on the extent of the meaning in this

  last clause. Judge Ruffin, pronouncing the opinion of the

  Supreme Court of North Carolina, says a slave is “one doomed

  Wheeler's Law of Slavery, 246, State v. Mann.

  in his own person, and his posterity, to live without

  knowledge, and without the capacity to make any-

  thing his own, and to toil that another may reap

  the fruits.'

  This is what slavery is, this is what it is to be a slave! The

  slave-code, then, of the Southern States, is designed to keep

  millions of human beings in the condition of chattels personal;

  to keep them in a condition in which the master may sell them,

  dispose of their time, person, and labour; in which they can do

  nothing, possess nothing, and acquire nothing, except for the

  benefit of the master; in which they are doomed in themselves

  and in their posterity to live without knowledge, without the

  power to make anything their own, to toil that another may

  reap. The laws of the slave-code are designed to work out this

  problem, consistently with the peace of the community, and the

  safety of that superior race which is constantly to perpetrate

  this outrage.

  From this simple statement of what the laws of slavery are

  designed to do--from a consideration that the class thus to be

  reduced, and oppressed, and made the subjects of a perpetual

  robbery, are men of like passions with our own, men originally

  made in the image of God as much as ourselves, men partakers

  of that same humanity of which Jesus Christ is the highest ideal

  and expression--when we consider that the material thus to be

  acted upon is that fearfully explosive element, the soul of man;

  that soul elastic, upspringing, immortal, whose free will even the

  Omnipotence of God refuses to coerce, we may form some idea

  of the tremendous force which is necessary to keep this mighti-

  est of elements in the state of repression which is contemplated

  in the definition of slavery.

  Of course, the system necessary to consummate and perpetuate

  such a work, from age to age, must be a fearfully stringent one;

  and our readers will find that it is so. Men who make the laws,

  and men who interpret them, may be fully sensible of their ter-

  rible severity and inhumanity; but if they are going to preserve

  the thing, they have no resource but to make the laws and to

  execute them faithfully after they are made. They may say with

  the Hon. Judge Ruffin, of North Carolina, when solemnly from

  the bench announcing this great foundation principle of slavery,

  that “the power of the master must be absolute, to

  render the submission of the slave perfect”--they

  may say with him, “I most freely confess my sense of the

  harshness of this proposition; I feel it as deeply as any man

  can; and, as a principle of moral right, every person in his

  retirement must repudiate it;” but they will also be obliged to

  add, with him, “But in the actual condition of things it must

  be so. * * This discipline belongs to the state of slavery.

  * * * It is inherent in the relation of master and slave.”

  And, like Judge Ruffin, men of honour, men of humanity,

  men of kindest and gentlest feelings, are obliged to interpret these

  severe laws with inflexible severity. In the perpetual reaction

  of that awful force of human passion and human will, which

  necessarily meets the compressive power of slavery--in that

  seething, boiling tide, never wholly repressed, which rolls its vol-

  canic stream underneath the whole framework of society so con-

  stituted, ready to find vent at the least rent or fissure or

  unguarded aperture--there is a constant necessity which urges

  to severity of law, and inflexibility of execution. So Judge

  Ruffin says, “We cannot allow the right of the master to

  be brought into discussion in the courts of justice. The slave,

  to remain a slave, must be made sensible that there is no ap-

  peal from his master.” Accordingly, we find in the more

  southern States, where the slave population is most accumulated,

  and slave property most necessary and valuable, and, of course,

  the determination to abide by the system the most decided,

  there the enactments are most severe, and the interpretation of

  Courts the most inflexible.* And, when legal decisions of a

  contrary character begin to be made, it would appear that it is

  a symptom of leaning towards emancipation. So abhorrent is

  the slave-code to every feeling of humanity, that just as soon as

  there is any hesitancy in the community about perpetuating the

  institution of slavery, judges begin to listen to the voice of their

  more honourable nature, and by favourable interpretations to

  soften its necessary severities.

  Such decisions do not commend themselves to the professional

  admiration of legal gentlemen. But in the workings of the slave

  system, when the irresponsible power which it guarantees comes

  to be used by men of the most brutal nature, cases sometimes

  arise for trial where the consistent exposition of the law involves

  results so loathsome and frightful that the judge prefers to be

  illogical, rather than inhuman. Like a spring out-gushing in the

  desert, some noble man, now and then, from the fulness of his

  own better nature, throws out a legal decision, generously incon-

  sistent with every principle and precedent of slave jurisprudence,

  and we bless God for it. All we wish is that there were more

  of them, for then should we hope that the day of redemption

  was drawing nigh.

  The reader is now prepared to enter with us on the proof of

  this proposition: That the slave-code is designed only for the

  security of the master, and not with regard to the welfare of the

  slave.

  This is implied in the whole current of law-making and law-

  administration, and is often asserted in distinct form, with a

  precision and clearness of legal accuracy which, in a literary

  point of view, are quite admirable. Thus, Judge Ruffin, after

  stating that considerations restricting the power of the master

  had often been drawn from a comparison of slavery with the

  relation of parent and child, master and apprentice, tutor and

  pupil, says distinctly:

  The Court does not recognise their application. There is no likeness between

  the cases. They are in opposition to each other, and there is an impassable gulf

  between them. * * * In the one [case], the end in view is the

  Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 246.

  happiness of the youth, born to equal rights with that governor

  on whom the duty devolves of training the young to usefulness, in

  a station which he is afterwards to assume among freemen
. * * *

  With slavery it is far otherwise. The end is the profit of the master his security and the public safety.

  Not only is this principle distinctly asserted in so many

  words, but it is more distinctly implied in multitudes of the

  arguings and reasonings which are given as grounds of legal

  decisions. Even such provisions as seem to be for the benefit

  of the slave we often find carefully interpreted so as to show that

  it is only on account of his property value to his master that he

  is thus protected, and not from any consideration of humanity

  Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 239.

  towards himself. Thus it has been decided that a

  master can bring no action for assault and battery

  on his slave, unless the injury be such as to produce a

  loss of service.

  The spirit in which this question is discussed is worthy of

  remark. We give a brief statement of the case, as presented in

  Wheeler, p. 239.

  It was an action for assault and battery committed by Dale

  on one Cornfute's slave. It was contended by Cornfute's counsel

  Cornfute v. Dale, April Term, 1800. 1 Har. and Johns. Rep. 4.

  that it was not necessary to prove loss of service, in

  order that the action should be sustained; that an

  action might be supported for beating plaintiff's

  horse; and that the lord might have an action for

  2 Lutw. 1481. 20 Viner's Abr. 454.

  the battery of his villein, which is founded on this

  principle, that, as the villein could not support the

  action, the injury would be without redress unless

  the lord could. On the other side, it was said that Lord

  Chief Justice Raymond had decided that an assault on a horse

  was no cause of action, unless accompanied with a special damage

  of the animal, which would impair his value.

  Chief Justice Chase decided that no redress could be

  obtained in the case, because the value of the slave had not

  been impaired; without injury or wrong to the master no action

  could be sustained; and assigned this among other reasons for

  it, that there was no reciprocity in the case, as the master was

  not liable for assault and battery committed by his slave,

  neither could he gain redress for one committed upon his slave.

  Let any reader now imagine what an amount of wanton

  cruelty and indignity may be heaped upon a slave man or woman

  or child without actually impairing their power to do service to

  the master, and he will have a full sense of the cruelty of this

  decision.

  In the same spirit it has been held in North Carolina that

  Tate v. O'Neal, 1 Hawks, 418, U.S. Dig. Sup. 2, p. 797, s. 121.

  patrols (night watchmen) are not liable to the master

  for inflicting punishment on the slave, unless their

  conduct clearly demonstrates malice against the

  master.

  The cool-bloodedness of some of these legal discussions is

  forcibly shown by two decisions in Wheeler's Law of Slavery,

  p. 243. On the question whether the criminal offence of assault

  and battery can be committed on a slave, there are two decisions

  State v. Maner, 2 Hill's Rep. 453. Wheeler's Law of Slavery, p. 243.

  of the two States of South and North Carolina; and

  it is difficult to say which of these decisions has the

  pre-eminence for cool legal inhumanity. That of

  South Carolina reads thus. Judge O'Neill says:

  The criminal offence of assault and battery cannot, at common law, be com-

  mitted upon the person of a slave. For notwithstanding (for some purposes) a

  slave is regarded by law as a person, yet generally he is a mere chattel personal,

  and his right or personal protection belongs to his master, who can maintain an

  action of trespass for the battery of his slave. There can be therefore no offence

  against the State for a mere beating of a slave unaccompanied with any circumstances

  of cruelty(!!), or an attempt to kill and murder. The peace of the State is not

  thereby broken; for a slave is not generally regarded as legally capable of being

  within the peace of the State. He is not a citizen, and is not in that character

  entitled to her protection.

  What declaration of the utter indifference of the State to the

  See State v. Hale. Wheeler, p. 239. 2 Hawk. N.C. Rep. 582.

  sufferings of the slave could be more elegantly cool

  and clear? But in North Carolina it appears that

  the case is argued still more elaborately.

  Chief Justice Taylor thus shows that, after all, there are reasons

  why an assault and battery upon the slave may, on the whole,

  have some such general connection with the comfort and security

  of the community, that it may be construed into a breach of the

  peace, and should be treated as an indictable offence.

  The instinct of a slave may be, and generally is, tamed into subservience to his

  master's will, and from him he receives chastisement, whether it be merited or not,

  with perfect submission; for he knows the extent of the dominion assumed over

  him, and that the law ratifies the claim. But when the same authority is wan-

  tonly usurped by a stranger, Nature is disposed to assert her rights, and to prompt

  the slave to a resistance, often momentarily successful, sometimes fatally so. The

  public peace is thus broken, as much as if a free man had been beaten; for the

  party of the aggressor is always the strongest, and such contests usually terminate

  by overpowering the slave, and inflicting on him a severe chastisement, without

  regard to the original cause of the conflict. There is, consequently, as much

  reason for making such offences indictable as if a white man had been the victim.

  A wanton injury committed on a slave is a great provocation to the owner.

  awakens his resentment, and has a direct tendency to a breach of the peace, by

  inciting him to seek immediate vengeance. If resented in the heat of blood, it

  would probably extenuate a homicide to manslaughter, upon the same principle

  with the case stated by Lord Hale that if, A riding on the road, B had whipped

  his horse out of the track, and then A had alighted and killed B. These offences

  are usually committed by men of dissolute habits, hanging loose upon society,

  who, being repelled from association with well-disposed citizens, take refuge in

  the company of coloured persons and slaves, whom they deprave by their example,

  embolden by their familiarity, and then beat, under the expectation that a slave

  dare not resent a blow from a white man. If such offences may be committed

  with impunity, the public peace will not only be rendered extremely insecure,

  but the value of slave property must be much impaired, for the offenders can

  seldom make any reparation in damages. Nor is it necessary, in any case, that

  a person who has received an injury, real or imaginary, from a slave, should

  carve out his own justice; for the law has made ample and summary provision

  for the punishment of all trivial offences committed by slaves, by

  1 Rev. Code, 448.

  carrying them before a justice, who is authorised to pass sentence

  for their being publicly whipped. This provision, while it ex-

  cludes the necessity of
private vengeance, would seem to forbid

  its legality, since it effectually protects all persons from the insolence of slaves, even

  where their masters are unwilling to correct them upon complaint being made. The

  common law has often been called into efficient operation, for the punishment of

  public cruelty inflicted upon animals, for needless and wanton barbarity exercised

  even by masters upon their slaves, and for various violations of decency, morals,

  and comfort. Reason and analogy seem to require that a human being, although

  the subject of property, should be so far protected as the public might be injured

  through him.

  For all purposes necessary to enforce the obedience of the slave, and to render

  him useful as property, the law secures to the master a complete authority over

  him, and it will not lightly interfere with the relation thus established. It is a

  more effectual guarantee of his right of property, when the slave is protected from

  wanton abuse from those who have no power over him; for it cannot be disputed

  that a slave is rendered less eapable of performing his master's service, when he

  finds himself exposed by the law to the capricious violence of every turbulent man

  in the community.

  If this is not a scrupulous disclaimer of all humane intention

  in the decision, as far as the slave is concerned, and an explicit

  declaration that he is protected only out of regard to the com-

  fort of the community, and his property value to his master, it

  is difficult to see how such a declaration could be made. After

  all this cold-blooded course of remark, it is somewhat curious to

  come upon the following certainly most unexpected declaration,

  which occurs in the very next paragraph:--

  Mitigated as slavery is by the humanity of our laws, the refinement of manners,

  and by public opinion, which revolts at every instance of cruelty towards them, it

  would be an anomaly in the system of police which affects them, if the offence

  stated in the verdict were not indictable.

  The reader will please to notice that this remarkable declara-

  tion is made of the State of North Carolina. We shall have

  occasion again to refer to it by and by, when we extract from

  the statute-book of North Carolina some specimens of these

  humane laws.