The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  County, on the night of the 29th of November, 1850. The evidence for the pro-

  secution was Sydney, a slave-boy, twelve years old, who testified that, in the

  night, he and a slave-girl, named Jane, were roused from sleep by the call of

  their master, Smith, who had returned home. They went out, and found Mima

  tied to his horse's neck, with two ropes, one round her neck, the other round her

  hands. Deceased carried her into the house, jerking the rope fastened to her

  neck, and tied her to a post. He called for something to eat, threw her a piece

  of bread, and, after he had done, beat her on her naked back with a large piece of

  light-wood, giving her many hard blows. In a short time, deceased went out of

  the house, for a special purpose, witness accompanying him with a torch-light, and

  hearing him say that he intended “to use the prisoner up.” The light was

  extinguished, and he re-entered the house for the purpose of lighting it. Jane

  was there; but the prisoner had been untied, and was not there. While lighting

  his torch, he heard blows outside, and heard the deceased cry out, two or three

  times, “O Leah! O Leah!” Witness and Jane went out, saw the deceased

  bloody and struggling, were frightened, ran back, and shut themselves up. Leah,

  it seems, was mother of the prisoner, and had run off two years, on account of

  cruel treatment by the deceased.

  Smith was speechless and unconscious till he died, the following morning, of

  the wounds inflicted on him.

  It was proved on the trial that Carroll, a white man, living about a mile from

  the house of the deceased, and whose wife was said to be the illegitimate daughter

  of Smith, had in his possession, the morning of the murder, the receipt given the

  deceased by Sheriff High the day before, for jail fees, and a note for thirty-five

  dollars, due deceased from one Wiley Price, which Carroll collected a short time

  thereafter; also the chest-keys of the deceased; and no proof was offered to show

  how Carroll came into possession of these articles.

  The following portion of the testimony discloses facts so horrible, and so dis-

  graceful to the people who tolerated, in broad daylight, conduct which would have

  shamed the devil, that we copy it just as we find it in the Raleigh paper. The

  scene, remember, is the city of Raleigh.

  “The defence was then opened. James Harris, C. W. D. Hutchings and Hon.

  W. H. Haywood, of Raleigh; John Cooper, of Wake; Joseph Hane and others,

  of Johnston, were examined for the prisoner. The substance of their testimony

  was as follows:--On the forenoon of Friday, 29th of November last, deceased

  took prisoner from Raleigh jail, tied her round the neck and wrist; ropes were

  then latched to the horse's neck; he cursed the prisoner several times, got on his

  horse, and started off. When he got opposite the Telegraph-office, on Fayette-

  ville-street, he pulled her shoes and stockings off, cursed her again, went off in a

  swift trot, the prisoner running after him, doing apparently all she could to keep

  up; passed round by Peck's store; prisoner seemed very humble and submissive;

  took down the street east of the Capitol, going at the rate of five miles an hour;

  continued this gait until he passed O. Rork's corner, about half or three-quarters

  of a mile from the Capitol; that he reached Cooper's (one of the witnesses), thir-

  teen miles from Raleigh, about four o'clock, P.M.; that it was raining very hard;

  deceased got off his horse, turned it loose with prisoner tied to its neck; witness

  went to take deceased's horse to stable; heard great lamentations at the house;

  hurried back; saw his little daughter running through the rain from the house,

  much frightened; got there; deceased was gouging prisoner in the eyes, and she

  making outcries; made him stop; became vexed, and insisted upon leaving; did

  leave in a short time, in the rain, sun about an hour high; when he left prisoner

  was tied as she was before; her arms and fingers were very much swollen; the rope

  around her wrist was small, and had sunk deep into the flesh, almost covered with

  it; that around the neck was large, and tied in a slip-knot; deceased would jerk

  it every now and then; when jerked it would choke prisoner; she was barefoot

  and bleeding; deceased was met some time after dark, in about six miles of home,

  being twenty-four or twenty-five from Raleigh.”

  Why did they not strike the monster to the earth, and punish him for his in-

  fernal brutality?

  The Attorney-general conducted the prosecution with evident loathing. The

  defence argued, first, that the evidence was insufficient to fasten the crime upon

  the prisoner; secondly, that, should the jury be satisfied beyond a rational doubt

  that the prisoner committed the act charged, it would yet be only manslaughter.

  “A single blow between equals would mitigate a killing instanter from murder

  to manslaughter. It could not, in law, be anything more, if done under the furor

  brevis of passion; but the rule was different as between master and slave. It was

  necessary that this should be, to preserve the subordination of the slave. The

  prisoner's counsel then examined the authorities at length, and contended that the

  prisoner's case came within the rule laid down in the State v. Will (1 Dev. and

  Bat. 121). The rule there given by Judge Gaston is this: `If a slave, in defence

  of his life, and under circumstances strongly calculated to excite his passions of

  terror and resentment, kill his overseer or master, the homicide is, by such cir-

  cumstances, mitigated to manslaughter.' The cruelties of the deceased to the

  prisoner were grievous and long-continued; they would have shocked a barbarian.

  The savage loves and thirsts for blood, but the arts of civilized life have not

  afforded him such refinement of torture as was here exhibited.”

  The Attorney-general, after discussing the law, appealed to the jury “not to

  suffer the prejudice which the counsel for the defence had attempted to create

  against the deceased (whose conduct he admitted was disgraceful to human nature)

  to influence their judgments in deciding whether the act of the prisoner was

  criminal or not, and what degree of criminality attached to it. He desired the

  prisoner to have a fair and impartial trial. He wished her to receive the benefit

  of every rational doubt. It was her right, however humble her condition; he

  hoped he had not that heart, as he certainly had not the right, by virtue of his

  office, to ask in her case for anything more than he would ask for the highest and

  proudest of the land on trial, that the jury should decide according to the evidence,

  and vindicate the violated law.”

  These were honourable sentiments.

  After an able charge by Judge Ellis, the jury retired, and after having remained

  out several hours, returned with a verdict of Not Guilty. Of course, we see

  not how they could hesitate to come to this verdict at once.

  The correspondent who furnishes the Register with a report of the case, says,

  “It excited an intense interest in the community in which it occurred, and,

  although it developes a series of cruelties shocking to human nature, the result of

  the trial, nevertheless, vindicates the benignity and justice
of our laws towards

  that class of our population whose condition Northern fanaticism has so carefully

  and grossly misrepresented, for their own purposes of selfishness, agitation, and

  crime.”

  We have no disposition to misrepresent the condition of the slaves, or to dis-

  parage the laws of North Carolina; but we ask, with a sincere desire to know

  the truth, Do the laws of North Carolina allow a master to practise such horrible

  cruelties upon his slaves as Smith was guilty of? and would the public sentiment of the city of Raleigh permit a repetition of such enormities as were perpetrated

  in its streets, in the light of day, by that miscreant?

  In conclusion, as the accounts of these various trials contain so

  many shocking incidents and particulars, the author desires to

  enter a caution against certain mistaken uses which may be made

  of them, by well-intending persons. The crimes themselves,

  which form the foundation of the trials, are not to be considered

  and spoken of as specimens of the common working of the slave

  system. They are, it is true, the logical and legitimate fruits of

  a system which makes every individual owner an irresponsible

  despot. But the actual number of them, compared with the

  whole number of masters, we take pleasure in saying, is small.

  It is an injury to the cause of freedom to ground the argument

  against slavery upon the frequency with which such scenes as these

  occur. It misleads the popular mind as to the real issue of the

  subject. To hear many men talk, one would think that they

  supposed that unless negroes actually were whipped or burned

  alive, at the rate of two or three dozen a week, there was no harm

  in slavery. They seem to see nothing in the system, but its gross

  bodily abuses. If these are absent, they think there is no harm

  in it. They do not consider that the twelve hours' torture of

  some poor victim, bleeding away his life, drop by drop, under

  the hands of a Souther, is only a symbol of that more atrocious

  process by which the divine, immortal soul is mangled, burned,

  lacerated, thrown down, stamped upon, and suffocated, by the

  fiend-like force of the tyrant Slavery. And as, when the torturing

  work was done, and the poor soul flew up to the judgment-seat,

  to stand there in awful witness, there was not a vestige of

  humanity left in that dishonoured body, nor anything by which

  it could be said, “See, this was a man!”--so, when Slavery has

  finished her legitimate work upon the soul, and trodden out every

  spark of manliness, and honour, and self-respect, and natural

  affection, and conscience, and religious sentiment, then there is

  nothing left in the soul, by which to say, “This was a man!”--

  and it becomes necessary for judges to construct grave legal

  arguments to prove that the slave is a human being.

  Such extreme cases of bodily abuse from the despotic power

  of slavery are comparatively rare. Perhaps they may be paral-

  leled by cases brought to light in the criminal jurisprudence of

  other countries. They might, perhaps, have happened any-

  where; at any rate, we will concede that they might. But

  where under the sun did such trials, of such cases, ever take

  place, in any nation professing to be free and Christian? The

  reader of English history will, perhaps, recur to the trials under

  Judge Jeffreys as a parallel. A moment's reflection will convince

  him that there is no parallel between the cases. The decisions

  of Jeffreys were the decisions of a monster, who violently wrested

  law from its legitimate course to gratify his own fiendish nature.

  The decisions of American slave-law have been, for the most part,

  the decisions of honourable and humane men, who have wrested

  from their natural course the most humane feelings, to fulfil the

  mandates of a cruel law.

  In the case of Jeffreys, the sacred forms of the administration

  of justice were violated. In the case of the American decisions,

  every form has been maintained. Revolting to humanity as

  these decisions appear, they are strictly logical and legal.

  Therefore, again, we say, Where, ever, in any nation pro-

  fessing to be civilised and Christian, did such trials of such

  cases take place? When were ever such legal arguments made?

  When, ever, such legal principles judicially affirmed? Was ever

  such a trial held in England as that in Virginia, of Souther v. The Commonwealth? Was it ever necessary in England for

  a judge to declare on the bench, contrary to the opinion of a

  lower Court, that the death of an apprentice, by twelve hours'

  torture from his master, did amount to murder in the first

  degree? Was such a decision, if given, accompanied by the

  affirmation of the principle, that any amount of torture inflicted

  by the master, short of the point of death, was not indictable?

  Not being read in English law, the writer cannot say; but there

  is strong impression from within that such a decision as this

  would have shaken the whole island of Great Britain; and that

  such a case as Souther v. The Commonwealth would never have

  been forgotten under the sun. Yet it is probable that very few

  persons in the United States ever heard of the case, or ever

  would have heard of it, had it not been quoted by the New

  York Courier and Enquirer as an overwhelming example of

  legal humanity.

  The horror of the whole matter is, that more than one such

  case should ever need to happen in a country, in order to make

  the whole community feel, as one man, that such power ought

  not to be left in the hands of a master. How many such cases

  do people wish to have happen?--how many must happen,

  before they will learn that utter despotic power is not to be

  trusted in any hands? If one white man's son or brother had

  been treated in this way, under the law of apprenticeship, the

  whole country would have trembled, from Louisiana to Maine,

  till that law had been altered. They forget that the black man

  has also a Father. It is “He that sitteth upon the circle of the

  heavens, who bringeth the princes to nothing, and maketh the

  judges of the earth as vanity.” He hath said that, “When he

  maketh inquisition for blood, he forgetteth not the cry of

  the humble.” That blood which has fallen so despised to the

  earth--that blood which lawyers have quibbled over, in the

  quiet of legal nonchalance, discussing in great ease whether it

  fell by murder in the first or second degree--HE will one day

  reckon for as the blood of his own child. He “is not slack

  concerning his promises, as some men count slackness, but is

  long-suffering to usward;” but the day of vengeance is surely

  coming, and the year of his redeemed is in his heart.

  Another Court will sit upon these trials, when the Son of

  Man shall come in his glory. It will be not alone Souther,

  and such as he, that will be arraigned there; but all those

  in this nation, North and South, who have abetted the system,

  and made the laws which made Souther what he was. In

  that Court negro testi
mony will be received, if never before;

  and the judges, and the counsellors, and the chief men, and

  the mighty men, marshalled to that awful bar, will say to the

  mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the

  face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of

  the Lamb.”

  The wrath of the Lamb! Think of it! Think that Jesus

  Christ has been present, a witness--a silent witness through

  every such scene of torture and anguish--a silent witness in

  every such Court, calmly hearing the evidence given in the

  lawyers pleading, the bills filed, and cases appealed! And

  think what a heart Jesus Christ has, and with what age-long

  patience he has suffered! What awful depths are there in that

  word long-suffering! and what must be that wrath, when,

  after ages of endurance, this dread accumulation of wrong and

  anguish comes up at last to judgment!

  CHAPTER XII.

  A COMPARISON OF THE ROMAN LAW OF SLAVERY WITH THE

  AMERICAN.

  The writer has expressed the opinion that the American law

  of slavery, taken throughout, is a more severe one than that of

  any other civilised nation, ancient or modern, if we except, per-

  haps, that of the Spartans. She has not at hand the means of

  comparing French and Spanish slave-codes; but, as it is a

  common remark that Roman slavery was much more severe than

  any that has ever existed in America, it will be well to compare

  the Roman with the American law. We therefore present a

  description of the Roman slave-law, as quoted by William Jay,

  Esq., from Blair's “Inquiry into the State of Slavery among the

  Romans,” giving such references to American authorities as

  will enable the reader to make his own comparison, and to

  draw his own inferences.

  I. The slave had no protection against the avarice, rage, or lust of the master,

  whose authority was founded in absolute property; and the bondman was viewed

  less as a human being subject to arbitrary dominion, than as an inferior animal

  dependent wholly on the will of his owner.

  See law of South Carolina, in Stroud's “Sketch of the Laws

  of Slavery,” p. 23.

  Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law to be chattels

  2 Brev. Dig. 219. Prince's Dig. 446. Cobb's Dig. 971.