according to the unanimous decision of the General Court on the act of 1805, was as much a penitentiary offense in Virginia as maiming a free man.

It was partly to protect the master in his property rights, but partly, also, in recognition of the slave's personal rights that slave-stealing was early made a grave offense. A law of 1798 in Virginia made it punishable by death without benefit of clergy, but after the construction of a State penitentiary this was changed to imprisonment from 3 to 8 years.

In Maryland the legislature went to considerable pains to prevent the sale South of Negroes who were "slaves for a term of years" and not for life. "As early as 1789, the attention of the House of Delegates was called by the Society of Friends and by others, to the exportation by fraud or violence of slaves for terms of years; and for a generation thereafter, efforts for stringent and effective legislation were frequently made, especially by the Society of Friends.

"In 1839, two men attached to a New York schooner stole a
Virginia Slave, and a requisition for them was refused by Governor
William H. Seward of New York, on the ground that they had not
committed treason or felony within the provisions of the United
States Constitution, which did not embrace State laws; that there
was no such crime as slave stealing in common law, as slavery was
not so recognized; that New York had abolished slavery and the
offense was a crime only by statute law of Virginia. For this ac-
tion the Governor was accused by several New York and Massachu-
setts papers of having infringed not only a precedent of one of his
predecessors in office, but also a decision of the Supreme Court of
New York, and of violating a provision of the United States Consti-
tution."

REFERENCES -Ballagh,-History of Slavery in Virginia, pp. 72, 73, 75;
Brackett-The Negro in Maryland, 60, 61.

The Right of the Master to

Punish his Slave

The right of the master to punish his slave was based not on the conception of the slave as property but on the authority of the master as head of the patriarchal organization represented by the plantation and was common to English servitude, villainage, apprenticeship and indentured servitude.

"Developed as an incident of servitude, corporal punishment was retained when this status passed into that of slavery. Humanity and self-interest were at first supposed to be sufficient motives to limit the extent of this power of the master to its rational use, but when they failed to do so the law intervened."

In 1829 a case arose in North Carolina, however, in which a mas

ter was indicted for beating a slave. The court in rendering its
decision acquitted the master and affirmed the masters right to
inflict any kind of punishment upon his slave short of death. In
this decision chief justice Ruffin expressly denied that the relation
of master and slave had any of the patriarchial element about it.
It was a mistake, he declared, to say that the relations of master
and slave were like those of parent and child. The object of the
parent in training his son was to render him fit to live the life of
a free man, and, as a means to that end, he gave him moral and
intellectual instruction. With the case of the slave it was differ-
ent. There could be no sense in addressing moral considerations
to a slave. The Chief Justice summed up his opinion upon this
point in these words:

"The end of slavery is the profit of the master, his security and
the public safety; the subject, one doomed in his own person and his
posterity to live without knowledge and without the capacity to
make anything his own, and to toil that another may reap the
fruits. What moral consideration shall be addressed to such a be-
ing to convince him, what it is impossible but that the most stupid
must feel and know can never be true-that he is thus to labor upon
a principle of natural duty, or for the sake of his own personal
happiness. Such services can only be expected from one who has
no will of his own, who surrenders his will in implicit obedience to
that of another. Such obedience is the consequence only of uncon-
trolled authority over the body. There is nothing else which can
operate to produce the effect. The power of the master must be
absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect."

Until 1723, if a slave chanced to die as a consequence of "a lawful correction" it was viewed as a lamentable and accidental homicide. In that year an act was passed in Virginia making such killing of a slave manslaughter, and not liable to prosecution or punishment. But if a single creditable witness declared that the slave was killed "wilfully, maliciously, or designedly," the person who perpetrated the crime might be punished as a murderer. In 1788 this law was repealed, and thenceforth the killing and maiming of a slave was made punishable as if he were a free white man.

"There was nothing, however, to prevent excessive beating of a slave that did not result in death or maiming, except the "deep and solemn reprobation of the tribunal of public opinion," though a person who cruelly beat a horse or other beast was subject to a fine of $50."

In 1850, a master convicted of torturing and killing a slave was sentenced in the Circuit Court of Hanover, Virginia, to five years in the penitentiary. "This penalty was so manifestly inadequate to the offense that the case was carried up to the General Court, where it was unanimously adjudged not manslaughter, but murder in the first degree. The presiding judge declaring as his belief

that the records of criminal jurisprudence do not contain a case of
more atrocious and wicked cruelty."

The following item from the American Weekly Mercury, April
29, 1742, is the kind of punishment in Pennsylvania of a white man
who killed a black:

"Yesterday at a Supreme Court held in this City, sentence of Death was passed upon William Bullock, who was

of the Murder of his Negro Slave."

Convicted

For more serious crimes and for offenses committed outside of the master's household, the slave was punishable by the State. So far he was regarded as a legal person with the same liability as any other free agent. Prior to 1692, slaves guilty of capital crimes were entitled to the same procedure, including trial by jury, as free whites. After that time they were given a summary trial by a commission selected by the sheriff, who indicted and convicted offenders without the intervention of a jury. In 1705, a master was allowed to appear in defense of his slave.

"The chief discrimination against the slave involved in punishment for capital crimes was that bare intention or attempt to commit a felony, though unsuccessful or not resulting in actual breach of the peace, was punishable as if the offense had been committed, while in the case of free whites intention was not punishable as it was in the case of slaves, unless the deed was committed. An attempt against the virtue of a white woman by a free white was a high misdemeanor, not a capital crime. Free Negroes were likewise punished by confinement in the penitentiary for three or more years for many crimes that were capital in the slave.

The following crimes were misdemeanors punishable by whipping:
(1) hog stealing, first offense; (2) unseasonable killing of deer, if
on the slave's own responsibility; (3) presence at unlawful meet-
ings; (4) going abroad without leave; (5) carrying offensive or de-
fensive weapons or ammunition without permission; (6) raising
his hand against a Christian white unless wantonly assaulted.
The penalty in each case was corporal punishment upon the bare
back, the number of lashes varying from ten to thirty-nine, being
specifically stated. Free colored persons and whites received like
punishment, though a fewer number of lashes, where, like the slave,
they could not make satisfaction by money payment. By 1847
the crimes of (7) provoking language, as well as a menacing ges-
ture to a white; (8) making a seditious speech; and (9) selling,
keeping or administering medicine in other families without con-
sent, were specifically added, and punishment was not to exceed
thirty-nine lashes at one time.

REFERENCES.-Ballagh-History of the Negro in Virginia, pp. 77, 81, 83, 87;
Turner-Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 36.

The theory of slavery developed in Europe under the influence of the Christian Church was that slavery should be confined to the

heathen and that when an individual was accepted into the fellowship of the Christian religion he should not be longer held in slavery. The Negro, being a heathen, fell naturally into the same category as Jews, Mohammedans and Indians. One excuse first advanced for slavery by the Spanish conquerors and later adopted by other apologists for slavery was, that in this way it was possible to give the infidel races the benefit of the Christian religion. The effect of this doctrine, however, was to induce masters to neglect the religious instruction of their slaves, since membership in the church seemed inconsistent with servitude for life.

To meet this difficulty the Virginia Legislature passed a law in 1667 declaring:

"Baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom; in order that diverse masters freed from this doubt may more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity."

In 1670, the benefits of Christianity as to freedom were limited to servants imported from Christian lands. In 1682, the benefits of Christianity as a mode of securing freedom were definitely denied to all Negroes, mulattoes, Moors, and Turks, and to such Indian slaves as were sold by other Indians where original heathenism was affirmed.

By 1776, when the Virginia Declaration of Rights was adopted, in which more explicity than in the Declaration of Independence the natural equality and inalienable right of every man "to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is affirmed, slavery had come to be so thoroughly accepted as the natural condition of the Negro, that hardly a question was raised as to the effect of this declaration on the institution of slavery.

Chancellor Wythe, of the State of Virginia, did indeed lay down the rule that whenever one person claims to hold another in slavery "the burden of proof lies on the claimant," on the ground that freedom is the birthright of every human being. But the Virginia Court of Appeals disclaimed the decree of the Chancellor so far as it related to "native Africans and their descendants," who had been and were then held as slaves, but approved it as related to whites and American Indians. In the case of the Negro the presumption was that he was a slave until he was proven to be free.

THE ORIGIN OF THE FREE NEGRO CLASS

As Negro Servitude preceded Negro slavery, the first Free Negroes were recruited from the class of indentured servants. Others,

as for example, Richard Johnson in 1651 probably came in not as servants, but as free men.

As late as 1673 a judgment was rendered by the general Court against George Light for holding a Negro-indentured servant beyond his contract of five years. It was ordered that the Negro should "be free from his master and that said Mr. Light pay him Corne and Clothes according to the Custome of the Country and four hundred pounds tobac & cattle for his service Done him since he was free and pay costs."

After 1682 no Negroes were permitted to come into Virginia as servants and acquire freedom after a limited period of servitude. Not until the non-importation law of 1778 declared, "that every slave imported into this commonwealth, contrary to the time, intent and meaning of this act, shall upon importation become free" did Virginia recruit its class of free Negroes from imported Negrces.

A certain number of Free Negroes were descended from white women by Negro men. They were free according to the law that the children followed the status of the mother.

Another (source of the free Negro population) was the children of white women by Negro men.

Benjamin Banneker, the Negro astronomer, was, through his grandmother on his mother's side, descended from a white woman, Molly Welsh, who after serving seven years as a redemptioner had purchased a farm with two slaves, one of whom she emancipated and married.

Complaint was made in North Carolina in 1723 of immigrants "that several of them have intermarried with the white inhabitants; in contempt of the acts and laws in those cases made and provided"; and it was ordered that all white persons so married be subject to the same tax as was imposed on Negroes.

REFERENCES: Bassett-Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Car-
pp. 68-70. Washington-The Story of the Negro, Vol. II, p. 61.

olina.

Free Negroes and Manumitted

Slaves

The first law recognizing the right of the master to manumit his slaves was one that restricted it. In 1691 a law was passed in Virginia declaring that no Negro or mulatto was to be set free unless the person so doing should pay the charges for transporting the manumitted Negro beyond the limits of the colony. By an act passed in 1723 a master was forbidden under any pretext whatever to manumit a slave without the license of the governor and the coun