The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  slaves would prove a dangerous excitement to those still in

  bondage.

  For this reason, the American slave-code, which, as we have

  already seen, embraces, substantially, all the barbarities of that

  of ancient Rome, has added to it a set of laws more cruel

  than any which ancient and heathen Rome ever knew--laws

  designed to shut against the slave his last refuge--the humanity

  of his master. The master, in ancient Rome, might give his

  slave whatever advantages of education he chose, or at any time

  emancipate him, and the State did not interfere to prevent.*

  But in America the laws, throughout all the slave States,

  most rigorously forbid, in the first place, the education of the

  slave. We do not profess to give all these laws, but a few

  striking specimens may be presented. Our authority is Judge

  Stroud's “Sketch of the Laws of Slavery.”

  The legislature of South Carolina, in 1740, enounced the

  following preamble:

  Stroud's Sketch, p. 88.

  “Whereas, the having of slaves taught to write, or

  suffering them to be employed in writing, may be

  attended with great inconveniences;” and enacted that the crime

  of teaching a slave to write, or of employing a slave as a scribe,

  should be punished by a fine of one hundred pounds, current

  money. If the reader will turn now to the infamous “pro-

  tective” statute, enacted by the same legislature, in the same

  year, he will find that the same penalty has been appointed for

  the cutting out of the tongue, putting out of the eye, cruel scalding,

  &c., of any slave, as for the offence of teaching him to write!

  That is to say, that to teach him to write, and to put out his

  eyes, are to be regarded as equally reprehensible.

  That there might be no doubt of the “great and fundamental

  policy” of the State, and that there might be full security

  against the “great inconveniences” of “having of slaves taught

  to write,” it was enacted, in 1800, “That assemblies of slaves,

  free negroes, &c., * * * * * * *

  for the purpose of mental instruction, in a confined or secret

  place, &c. &c., is [are] declared to be an unlawful meeting;”

  Stroud's Sketch, p. 89. 2 Brevard's Digest, pp. 254-5.

  and the officers are required to enter such con-

  fined places, and disperse the “unlawful assem-

  blage,” inflicting, at their discretion, “such

  corporal punishment, not exceeding twenty lashes,

  upon such slaves, free negroes, &c., as they may judge necessary

  for deterring them from the like unlawful assemblage in future.”

  Stroud, pp. 88, 89.

  The statute-book of Virginia is adorned with a

  law similar to the one last quoted.

  The offence of teaching a slave to write was early punished,

  in Georgia as in South Carolina, by a pecuniary fine. But the

  city of Savannah seems to have found this penalty insufficient

  to protect it from “great inconveniences,” and we learn, by a

  quotation in the work of Judge Stroud, from a number of The

  Stroud's Sketch, pp. 89, 90.

  Portfolio, that “the city has passed an ordinance,

  by which any person that teaches any person of

  colour, slave or free, to read or write, or causes such person to

  be so taught, is subjected to a fine of thirty dollars for each offence;

  and every person of colour who shall keep a school, to teach

  reading or writing, is subject to a fine of thirty dollars, or to be

  imprisoned ten days, and whipped thirty-nine lashes.”

  Secondly. In regard to religious privileges:--

  The State of Georgia has enacted a law, “to protect religious

  societies in the exercise of their religious duties.” This law,

  after appointing rigorous penalties for the offence of interrupting

  or disturbing a congregation of white persons, concludes in the

  following words:--

  Stroud, p. 92. Prince's Digest, p. 342.

  No congregation or company of negroes, shall, under pre-

  tence of divine worship, assemble themselves, contrary to the

  Act regulating patrols.

  “The Act regulating patrols,” as quoted by the editor of

  Prince's Digest, empowers every justice of the peace to disperse

  Stroud, p. 93. Prince's Digest, p. 447.

  any assembly or meeting of slaves which may dis-

  turb the peace, &c., of His Majesty's subjects, and

  permits that every slave found at such a meeting

  shall “immediately be corrected, without trial, by receiving

  on the bare back twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch, or cow-

  skin.”

  The history of legislation in South Carolina is significant.

  An Act was passed in 1800, containing the following section:--

  It shall not be lawful for any number of slaves, free negroes, mulattoes, or

  Stroud, p. 93. 2 Brevard's Digest, 254, 255.

  mestizoes, even in company with white persons, to meet

  together and assemble for the purpose of mental instruction

  or religious worship, either before the rising of the sun, or

  after the going down of the same. And all magistrates, sheriffs, militia officers

  &c., &c., are hereby invested with power, &c., for dispersing such assemblies, &c.

  The law just quoted seems somehow to have had a prejudicial

  effect upon the religious interests of the “slaves, free negroes,”

  &c., specified in it; for, three years afterwards, on the petition

  of certain religious societies, a “protective Act,” was passed,

  which should secure them this great religious privilege; to wit,

  that it should be unlawful, before nine o'clock, “to break into a

  place of meeting, wherein shall be assembled the members of

  any religious society of this State, provided a majority of them

  shall be white persons, or otherwise to disturb their devotion,

  unless such person shall have first obtained * * *

  a warrant, &c.”

  Thirdly. It appears that many masters, who are disposed

  to treat their slaves generously, have allowed them to accumulate

  property, to raise domestic animals for their own use, and, in

  the case of intelligent servants, to go at large, to hire their own

  time, and to trade upon their own account. Upon all these prac-

  tices the law comes down with unmerciful severity. A penalty is

  inflicted on the owner, but, with a rigour quite accordant with

  the tenor of slave-law, the offence is considered, in law, as that

  of the slave, rather than that of the master; so that, if the

  master is generous enough not to regard the penalty which is

  imposed upon himself, he may be restrained by the fear of

  bringing a greater evil upon his dependant. These laws are, in

  some cases, so constructed as to make it for the interest of the

  lowest and most brutal part of society that they be enforced, by

  offering half the profits to the informer. We give the follow-

  ing, as specimens of slave legislation on this subject:--

  The law of South Carolina.

  It shall not be lawful for any slave to buy, sell, trade, &c., for any goods, &c.,

  without a license from the owner, &c.; nor shall any slave be permitted to
keep

  any boat, periauger,* or canoe, or raise and breed, for the benefit of such slave,

  Stroud, pp. 46, 47. James' Digest, 385, 386, Act of 1740.

  any horses, mares, cattle, sheep, or hogs, under pain of forfeiting

  all the goods, &c., and all the boats, periaugers, or canoes, horses,

  mares, cattle, sheep, or hogs. And it shall be lawful for any

  person whatsoever to seize and take away from any slave all such

  goods, &c., boats, &c., &c., and to deliver the same into the

  hands of any justice of the peace, nearest to the place where the

  seizure shall be made; and such justice shall take the oath of the person making

  such seizure concerning the manner thereof; and if the said justice shall be

  satisfied that such seizure has been made according to law, he shall pronounce

  and declare the goods so seized to be forfeited, and order the same to be sold at

  public outcry, one half of the money arising from such sale to go to the State,

  and the other half to him or them that sue for the same.

  The laws in many other States are similar to the above; but the

  2 Cobbs, Sig. 284.

  State of Georgia has an additional provision, against

  permitting the slave to hire himself to another for

  his own benefit; a penalty of thirty dollars is imposed for

  every weekly offence on the part of the master, unless the labour

  be done on his own premises. Savannah, Augusta, and Sun-

  bury, are places excepted.

  In Virginia, “if the master shall permit his slave to hire

  Stroud, p 47.

  himself out,” the slave is to be apprehended, &c.,

  and the master to be fined.

  In an early Act of the Legislature of the orthodox and Pres-

  byterian State of North Carolina, it is gratifying to see how the

  judicious course of public policy is made to subserve the interests

  of Christian charity--how, in a single ingenious sentence, pro-

  vision is made for punishing the offender against society,

  rewarding the patriotic informer, and feeding the poor and des-

  titute:--

  All horses, cattle, hogs, or sheep that, one month after the passing of this Act,

  shall belong to any slave, or be of any slave's mark, in this State, shall be

  Stroud's Sketch, 47.

  seized and sold by the county wardens, and by them applied, the one

  half to the support of the poor of the county, and the other half to

  the informer.

  In Mississippi, a fine of fifty dollars is imposed upon the

  Stroud, p. 48.

  master who permits his slave to cultivate cotton

  for his own use; or who licences his slave to go at

  large and trade as a freeman; or who is convicted of permitting

  his slave to keep “stock of any description.”

  To show how the above law has been interpreted by the

  highest judicial tribunal of the sovereign State of Mississippi,

  we repeat here a portion of a decision of Chief Justice Sharkey,

  which we have elsewhere given more in full.

  Independent of the principles laid down in adjudicated cases, our statute-law

  prohibits slaves from owning certain kinds of property; and it may be inferred

  that the legislature supposed they were extending the Act as far as it could be

  necessary to exclude them from owning any property, as the prohibition includes

  that kind of property which they would most likely be permitted to own without

  interruption, to wit: hogs, horses, cattle, &c. They cannot be prohibited from

  holding such property, in consequence of its being of a dangerous or offensive

  character, but because it was deemed impolitic for them to hold property of any

  description.

  It was asserted, at the beginning of this head, that the per-

  mission of the master to a slave to hire his own time is, by law,

  considered the offence of the slave; the slave being subject to

  prosecution therefore, not the master. This is evident from the

  tenor of some of the laws quoted and alluded to above. It will

  be still further illustrated by the following decisions of the Courts

  of North Carolina. They are copied from the Supplement to the

  U.S. Digest, vol. ii. p. 798:--

  139. An indictment charging that a certain negro did hire her own time,

  The State v. Clarissa, 5 Iredell,221.

  contrary to the form of the statute, &c., is defective, and must be

  quashed, because it was omitted to be charged that she was per-

  mitted by her master to go at large, which is one essential part of

  the offence.

  140. Under the first clause of the thirty-first section of the 111th chapter of the

  Revised Statutes, prohibiting masters from hiring to slaves their own time, the

  master is not indictable; he is only subject to a penalty of forty dollars. Nor is

  the master indictable under the second clause of that section; the process being

  against the slave, not against the master.--Ib.

  142. To constitute the offence under section 32 (Rev. Stat. c. xi. § 32) it is not

  necessary that the slave should have hired his time; it is sufficient if the master

  permits him to go at large as a freeman.

  This is maintaining the ground that “the master can do no

  wrong” with great consistency and thoroughness. But it is in

  perfect keeping, both in form and spirit, with the whole course

  of slave-law, which always upholds the supremacy of the master,

  and always depresses the slave.

  Fourthly. Stringent laws against emancipation exist in nearly

  all the slave States.

  Stroud, 147. Prince's Dig. 456. James' Dig. 98. Toulmin's Dig. 632. Miss. Rev. Code, 386.

  In four of the States--South Carolina, Georgia,

  Alabama, and Mississippi--emancipation cannot

  be effected, except by a special act of the legis-

  lature of the State.

  In Georgia, the offence of setting free “any slave, or slaves, in

  any other manner and form than the one prescribed,” was

  punishable, according to the law of 1801, by the forfeiture of

  two hundred dollars, to be recovered by action or indictment; the slaves in question still remaining, “to all intents and pur-

  poses, as much in a state of slavery as before they were manu-

  mitted.”

  Believers in human progress will be interested to know that

  since the law of 1801 there has been a reform introduced into

  this part of the legislation of the republic of Georgia. In 1818

  a new law was passed, which, as will be seen, contains a grand

  remedy for the abuses of the old. In this it is provided, with

  endless variety of specifications and synonyms, as if to “let

  suspicion double-lock the door” against any possible evasion,

  that, “All and every will, testament, and deed, whether by way

  of trust or otherwise, contract, or agreement, or stipulation, or

  other instrument in writing or by parole, made and executed for

  the purpose of effecting, or endeavouring to effect, the manumis-

  sion of any slave or slaves, either directly * * * or indirectly,

  or virtually, &c., &c., shall be, and the same are hereby declared

  to be, utterly null and void.” And the guilty author of the

  outrage against the peace of the State, contemplated in such

  deed, &c., &c., “and all and
every person or persons concerned

  in giving or attempting to give effect thereto * * * in any

  way or manner whatsoever, shall be severally liable to a penalty

  not exceeding one thousand dollars.”

  It would be quite anomalous in slave-law, and contrary to the

  “great and fundamental policy” of slave States, if the negroes

  who, not having the fear of God before their eyes, but being

  instigated by the devil, should be guilty of being thus manu-

  mitted, were suffered to go unpunished; accordingly, the law

  very properly and judiciously provides that “each and every

  slave or slaves in whose behalf such will or testament, &c., &c.,

  Stroud's Sketch, pp. 147-8. Prince's Dig. 466.

  shall have been made, shall be liable to be arrested by

  warrant, &c.; and, being thereof convicted, &c., shall

  be liable to be sold as a slave or slaves by public

  outcry; and the proceeds of such slaves shall be

  appropriated, &c., &c.”

  Judge Stroud gives the following account of the law of

  Mississippi:--

  The emancipation must be by an instrument in writing, a last will or deed, &c.,

  Stroud's Sketch, p. 149. Miss. Rev. Code, p. 385-6 (Act June 18, 1822).

  under seal attested by at least two credible witnesses, or ac-

  knowledged in the court of the county or corporation where

  the emancipator resides; proof satisfactory to the General

  Assembly must be adduced that the slave has done some

  meritorious act for the benefit of his master, or rendered

  some distinguished service to the State; all which circumstances are but pre-

  requisites, and are of no efficacy until a special Act of Assembly sanctions the eman-

  cipation; to which may be added, as has been already stated, a saving of the rights

  of creditors, and the protection of the widow's thirds.

  The same pre-requisite of “meritorious services, to be adjudged

  of and allowed by the county court,” is exacted by an Act of

  the General Assembly of North Carolina; and all slaves eman-

  cipated contrary to the provisions of this Act are to be com-

  mitted to the jail of the county, and at the next court held for

  that county are to be sold to the highest bidder.

  But the law of North Carolina does not refuse opportunity

  for repentance, even after the crime has been proved: accord-