Such was the opinion of Chancellor Harper on this subject, who had profoundly studied it, and whose views had been extensively read on this continent and in Europe. Fortunately, the jury, he said, were of the country, acquainted with our policy and practice; composed of men too independent and honourable to be led astray by the noise and clamour out of doors. All was now as it should be; at least a Court of justice had assembled to which his client had fled for refuge and safety. Its threshold was sacred; no profane clamours entered there; but legal investigation was had of facts derived from the testimony of sworn witnesses. And this should teach the community to shut their bosoms against sickly humanity, and their ears to imaginary tales of blood and horror, the food of a depraved appetite. He warned the jury that they were to listen to no testimony but that of free white persons, given on oath in open Court. They were to imagine none that came not from them. It was for this that they were selected, their intelligence putting them beyond the influence of unfounded accusations, unsustained by legal proof; of legends of aggravated cruelty, founded on the evidence of negroes, and arising from weak and wicked falsehoods. Were slaves permitted to testify against their owner, it would cut the cord that unites them in peace and harmony, and enable them to sacrifice their masters to their ill-will or revenge. Whole crews had been often leagued to charge captains of vessels with foulest murder, but judicial trial had exposed the falsehood. Truth has been distorted in this case, and murder manufactured out of what was nothing more than ordinary domestic discipline. Chastisement must be inflicted until subordination is produced; and the extent of the punishment is not to be judged by one’s neighbours, but by himself. The event in this case has been unfortunate and sad, but there was no motive for the taking of life. There is no pecuniary interest in the owner to destroy his slave; the murder of his slave can only happen from ferocious passions of the master, filling his own bosom with anguish and contrition. This case has no other basis but unfounded rumour, commonly believed, on evidence that will not venture here, the offspring of that passion and depravity which makes up falsehood. The hope of freedom, of change of owners, revenge, are all motives with slave-witnesses to malign their owners; and to credit such testimony would be to dissolve human society. Where deliberate, wilful, and malicious murder is done, whether by male or female, the retribution of the law is a debt to God and man; but the jury should beware lest it fall upon the innocent. The offence charged was not strictly murder at common law. The Act of 1740 was founded on the practical good sense of our old planters, and its spirit still prevails. The Act of 1821 is, by its terms, an Act only to increase the punishment of persons convicted of murdering a slave; and this is a refinement in humanity of doubtful policy. But, by the Act of 1821, the murder must be wilful, deliberate, and malicious; and, when punishment is due to the slave, the master must not be held to strict account for going an inch beyond the mark; whether for doing so he shall be a felon is a question for the jury to solve. The master must conquer a refractory slave; and deliberation, so as to render clear the existence of malice, is necessary to bring the master within the provisions of the Act. He bade the jury remember the words of Him who spake as never man spake—”Let him that has never sinned throw the first stone.” They, as masters, might regret excesses to which they have themselves carried punishment. He was not at all surprised at the course of the Attorney-General, it was his wont to treat every case with perfect fairness. He (Colonel H.) agreed that the inquiry should be —
1. Into the fact of the death.
2. The character or motive of the act.
The examination of the prisoner showed conclusively that the slave died a natural death, and not from personal violence. She was chastised with a lawful weapon; was in weak health, nervous, made angry by her punishment; excited. The story was then a plain one; the community had been misled by the creations of imagination, or the statements of interested slaves. The negro came into her mistress’s chamber; fell on the floor; medicine was given her; it was supposed she was asleep, but she slept the sleep of death. To show the wisdom and policy of the old Act of 1740 (this indictment is under both Acts, the punishment only altered by that of 1821), he urged that a case like this was not murder at common law, nor is the same evidence applicable at common law. There, murder was presumed from killing; not so in the case of a slave. The Act of 1740 permits a master, when his slave is killed in his presence, there being no other white person present, to exculpate himself by his own oath; and this exculpation is complete, unless clearly contravened by the evidence of two white witnesses. This is exactly what the prisoner has done; she has, as the law permits, by calling on God, exculpated herself. And her oath is good, at least against the slander of her own slaves. Which, then, should prevail — the clamours of others, or the policy of the law established by our colonial ancestors? There would not be a tittle of positive evidence against the prisoner, nothing but circumstantial evidence; and ingenious combination might be made to lead to any conclusion. Justice was all that his client asked. She appealed to liberal and high-minded men, and she rejoiced in the privilege of doing so, to accord her that justice they would demand for themselves.
Mr. Deveaux was not cross-examined.
Evidence resumed.
Dr. E. W. North sworn. — (Cautioned by Attorney-General to avoid hearsay evidence.) Was the family physician of Mrs. Rowand. Went on the 6th January, at Mrs. Rowand’s request, to see her at her mother’s, in Logan-street; found her down stairs in sitting-room; she was in a nervous and excited state; had been so for a month before; he had attended her; she said nothing to witness of slave Maria; found Maria in a chamber, up stairs, about one o’clock P.M.; she was dead; she appeared to have been dead about an hour and a half; his attention was attracted to a piece of pine-wood on a trunk or table in the room; it had a large knot on one end; had it been used on Maria it must have caused considerable contusion; other pieces of wood were in a box, and much smaller ones; the corpse was lying one side in the chamber; it was not laid out; presumed she died there; the marks on the body were, to witness’s view, very slight, some scratches about the face; he purposely avoided making an examination; observed no injuries about the head; had no conversation with Mrs. Rowand about Maria; left the house; it was on the 6th January last, the day before the inquest; knew the slave before, but had never attended her.
Cross-examined. — Mrs. Rowand was in feeble health, and nervous; the slave Maria was weak and emaciated in appearance; sudden death of such a person, in such a state, from apoplexy or action of nervous system, not unlikely; her sudden death would not imply violence; had prescribed asafoetida for Mrs. Rowand on a former visit; it is an appropriate remedy for nervous disorders; Mrs. Rowand was not of bodily strength to handle the pine knot so as to give a severe blow; Mrs. Rowand has five or six children, the elder of them large enough to have carried pieces of the wood about the room; there must have been a severe contusion, and much extravasation of blood, to infer death from violence in this case; apoplexy is frequently attended with extravasation of blood; there were two Marias in the family.
In reply. — Mrs. Rowand could have raised the pine knot, but could not have struck a blow with it; such a piece of wood could have produced death, but it would have left its mark; saw the fellow Richard; he was quite capable of giving such a blow.
Dr. Peter Porcher. — Was called in by the coroner’s jury to examine Maria’s body; found it in the wash-kitchen; it was the corpse of one feeble and emaciated; partly prepared for burial; had the clothes removed; the body was lacerated with stripes; abrasions about face and knuckles; skin knocked of; passed his hand over the head; no bone broken; on request opened her thorax, and examined the viscera; found them healthy; heart unusually so for one of her age; no particular odour; some undigested food; no inflammation; removed the scalp, and found considerable extravasation between scalp and skull; scalp bloodshot; just under the scalp, found the effects of a single blow, just over the right ear; after removing the scalp, lifted th
e bone; no rupture of any blood-vessel; some softening of the brain in the upper hemisphere; there was considerable extravasation under the scalp, the result of a succession of blows on the top of the head; this extravasation was general, but that over the ear was a single spot; the buttend of a cow-hide would have sufficed for this purpose; an ordinary stick, a heavy one, would have done it; a succession of blows on the head, in a feeble woman, would lead to death, when, in a stronger one, it would not; saw no other appearance about her person to account for her death, except those blows.
Cross-examined. — To a patient in this woman’s condition the blows would probably cause death; they were not such as were calculated to kill an ordinary person; witness saw the body twenty-four hours after her death; it was winter, and bitter cold; no disorganisation, and the examination was therefore to be relied on; the blow behind the ear might have resulted from a fall, but not the blow on the top of the head, unless she fell head foremost; came to the conclusion of a succession of blows, from the extent of the extravasation; a single blow would have shown a distinct spot, with a gradual spreading or diffusion; one large blow could not account for it, as the head was spherical; no blood on the brain; the softening of the brain did not amount to much; in an ordinary dissection would have passed it over; anger sometimes produces apoplexy, which results in death; blood between the scalp and the bone of the skull; it was evidently a fresh extravasation; twenty-four hours would scarcely have made any change; knew nothing of this negro before; even after examination, the cause of death is sometimes inscrutable; not usual, however.
In reply. — Does not attribute the softening of the brain to the blows; it was slight, and might have been the result of age; it was some evidence of impairment of vital powers by advancing age.
Dr. A. P. Hayne. — At request of the coroner, acted with Dr. Porcher; was shown into an out-house; saw on the back of the corpse evidences of contusion; arms swollen and enlarged; laceration of body; contusions on head and neck; between scalp and skull extravasation of blood, on the top of head, and behind the right ear; a burn on the hand; the brain presented healthy appearance; opened the body, and no evidences of disease in the chest or viscera; attributed the extravasation of blood to external injury from blows — blows from a large and broad and blunt instrument; attributes the death to those blows; supposes they were adequate to cause death, as she was old, weak, and emaciated.
Cross-examined. — Would not have caused death in a young and robust person.
The evidence for the prosecution here closed, and no witnesses were called for the defence.
The jury were then successively addressed, ably and eloquently, by J. L. Petigru and James S. Rhett, Esqrs., on behalf of the prisoner, and H. Bailey, Esq., on behalf of the State; and by B.F. Hunt, Esq., in reply. Of those speeches, and also of the judge’s charge, we have taken full notes, but have neither time nor space to insert them here.
His Honour, Judge O’Neall, then charged the jury eloquently and ably on the facts, vindicating the existing law, making death the penalty for the murder of a slave; but, on the law, intimated to the jury that he held the Act of 1740 so far still in force as to admit of the prisoner’s exculpation by her own oath, unless clearly disproved by the oaths of two witnesses; and that they were, therefore, in his opinion, bound to acquit; although he left it to them, wholly, to say whether the prisoner was guilty of murder, killing in sudden heat and passion, or not guilty.
The jury then retired, and, in about twenty or thirty minutes, returned with a verdict of “Not Guilty.”
There are some points which appear in this statement of the trial, especially in the plea for the defence. Particular attention is called to the following passage: —
Fortunately (said the lawyer), the jury were of the country; acquainted with our policy and practice; composed of men too honourable to be led astray by the noise and clamour out of doors. All was now as it should be; at least, a court of justice had assembled to which his client had fled for refuge and safety; its threshold was sacred; no profane clamours entered there; but legal investigation was had of facts.
From this it plainly appears that the case was a notorious one; so notorious and atrocious as to break through all the apathy which slave-holding institutions tend to produce, and to surround the court-house with noise and clamour.
From another intimation in the same speech, it would appear that there was abundant testimony of slaves to the direct fact — testimony which left no kind of doubt on the popular mind. Why else does he thus earnestly warn the jury?
He warned the jury that they were to listen to no evidence but that of free white persons, given on oath in open Court; they were to imagine none that came not from them. It was for this that they were selected; their intelligence putting them beyond the influence of unfounded accusations, unsustained by legal proof; of legends of aggravated cruelty, founded on the evidence of negroes, and arising from weak and wicked falsehoods.
See also this remarkable admission: “Truth had been distorted in this case, and murder manufactured out of what was nothing more than ORDINARY DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE.” If the reader refers to the testimony, he will find it testified that the woman appeared to be about sixty years old; that she was much emaciated; that there had been a succession of blows on the top of her head, and one violent one over the ear; and that, in the opinion of a surgeon, these blows were sufficient to cause death. Yet the lawyer for the defence coolly remarks that “murder had been manufactured out of what was ordinary domestic discipline.” Are we to understand that beating feeble old women on the head, in this manner, is a specimen of ordinary domestic discipline in Charleston? What would have been said if any anti-slavery newspaper at the North had made such an assertion as this? Yet the Charleston Courier reports this statement without comment or denial. But let us hear the lady’s lawyer go still further in vindication of this ordinary domestic discipline: “Chastisement must be inflicted until subordination is produced; and the extent of the punishment is not to be judged by one’s neighbours, but by himself. The event, IN THIS CASE, has been unfortunate and sad.” The lawyer admits that the result of thumping a feeble old woman on the head has, in this case, been “unfortunate and sad.” The old thing had not strength to bear it, and had no greater regard for the convenience of the family and the reputation of “the institution” than to die, and so get the family and the community generally into trouble. It will appear from this that in most cases where old women are thumped on the head, they have stronger constitutions — or more consideration.
Again he says, “When punishment is due to the slave, the master must not be held to strict account for going an inch beyond the mark.” And finally, and most astounding of all, comes this: “He bade the jury remember the words of Him who spake as never man spake — LET HIM THAT HATH NEVER SINNED THROW THE FIRST STONE. They, as masters, might regret excesses to which they themselves might have carried punishment.”
What sort of an insinuation is this? Did he mean to say that almost all the jurymen had probably done things of the same sort, and therefore could have nothing to say in this case? and did no member of the jury get up and resent such a charge? From all that appears, the jury acquiesced in it as quite a matter of course; and the Charleston Courier quotes it without comment, in the record of a trial which it says “will show to the world HOW the law extends the ægis of her protection alike over the white man and the humblest slave.”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 684