# Punishment of Slave Owners? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 22, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907 "2019-06-22T21:59:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/1 "2019-06-22T21:59:35Z")
After slavery was ended, following the Civil War, was there any sort of backlash against slave owners or other parties who had been egregiously evil to slaves? Examples being: 1. Freed slaves reporting abuse to the police/feds. 2. Private retribution by individuals towards slave owners. 3. Former slaves who gained political power using their position to make life difficult for former slave owners. 4. The Federal government seeking out and penalizing people who had been extra bad. Specifically, I’m curious if there is specific movement to punish people during a specific time period (like, something which might be named and could be looked up). ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/2 "2019-06-22T22:49:37Z")
Do reparations count? > **[Opinion | When Slaveowners Got Reparations (Published 2019)](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/opinion/when-slaveowners-got-reparations.html)** > > Lincoln signed a bill in 1862 that paid up to $300 for every enslaved person freed. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2019, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/3 "2019-06-22T23:30:50Z")
The slave owners lost a substantial portion of their wealth (which had been tied up in slaves), their sons and other relatives were killed in battle, their fields and houses could have been destroyed depending on location (think Sherman’s march to the sea) and the Southern economy was in chaos after the war. And think of the Carpetbaggers from the North: [Carpetbagger - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetbagger) But my impression was that the Blacks gaining power or doing retribution were not a major problem. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/4 "2019-06-23T01:02:44Z")
The short answer to the OP’s question is, Good Heavens, no! The slightly longer answer is that virtually no white citizen in the country cared what slaveowners had done to their legal property. As for #3, though Southerners complained vehemently about black officeholders and carpetbaggers during Reconstruction, they had little real time, opportunity, or power to go back and prosecute the past. Heck, they had little real power. Who was going to enforce any such laws? The elite remained the elite, and had all the local power, just as always. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/5 "2019-06-23T01:17:28Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The short answer to the OP’s question is, Good Heavens, no! > > The slightly longer answer is that virtually no white citizen in the country cared what slaveowners had done to their legal property. > > As for #3, though Southerners complained vehemently about black officeholders and carpetbaggers during Reconstruction, they had little real time, opportunity, or power to go back and prosecute the past. Heck, they had little real power. Who was going to enforce any such laws? The elite remained the elite, and had all the local power, just as always. And to the extent that they did have power, it was relatively short-lived, since the compromise that ended the crisis of the 1876 election ended the period of Reconstruction. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/6 "2019-06-23T02:08:57Z")
The only example of 4 was the charges, conviction, and execution of Wirz as commander of the Andersonville prison. IANAL but my understanding was that “war crimes” or “crimes against humanity” are creations out of WWII to hold the Axis leaders to account. Before then, summary executions without legal basis might have been the norm. Henry Wirz could be charged with murder of Union soldiers because there were laws against the treatment he gave to those soldiers. I don’t think there was a legal reason to charge any slave owner, since their slaves were their property and what they did was not illegal at the time, and laws cannot be applied retroactively. Violating the norms of human decency is not a specific crime. Also keep in mind that due to the circumstances, there were not that many educated leaders among the black community, and even where they constituted a majority (few places) the white class held all the levers of power - they had the money, the guns, the organizational connections, friends in the right places, etc. - thus they could form the Klan and protect themselves while the freed slaves were barely getting their act together and had more pressing concerns, like where their next meal would come from. (After all, they did not have farms, seed crop, farming tools etc. - freedom is great, but then what?) And… there wasn’t the hue and cry to seek out any such violations. The war had probably brought more immediate horrors to much of the white households of the North, going looking for injustices against a distant minority was not a priority. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/7 "2019-06-23T03:29:48Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > IANAL but my understanding was that “war crimes” or “crimes against humanity” are creations out of WWII to hold the Axis leaders to account. Not how it happened. Prosecuting the Axis leaders for crimes made up _after_ ww2, or during ww2 without international consensus, would be a violation of ex post facto. But the definition of “crimes against humanity” had been established decades earlier, in 1899 and 1907 in Hague treaties, and so the accused should have known their conduct was a crime against humanity. Slave owners, while they may have done cruel and abhorrent things, their conduct was not a violation of the laws that were in effect in their territories at the time they committed them. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/8 "2019-06-23T03:39:44Z")
It was illegal in most states to actually kill a slave, whether it was your own or someone else’s. I’m not aware of any white southerner who was convicted of such a crime, though it must have occurred frequently. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/9 "2019-06-23T04:43:33Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > It was illegal in most states to actually kill a slave, whether it was your own or someone else’s. I’m not aware of any white southerner who was convicted of such a crime, though it must have occurred frequently. AFAICT, causing the death of a slave during “correction” or punishment, or if the slave was attempting to escape, was generally excepted from laws against deliberately killing slaves. Even blatant causeless murder of a slave incurred a mere fine, albeit a fairly substantial one, rather than any more severe punishment. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/10 "2019-06-23T05:42:21Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > AFAICT, causing the death of a slave during “correction” or punishment, or if the slave was attempting to escape, was generally excepted from laws against deliberately killing slaves. Even blatant causeless murder of a slave incurred a mere fine, albeit a fairly substantial one, rather than any more severe punishment. The “standard language” for slave-state constitutions before the Civil War with respect to murdering a slave (or “dismembering” a slave) seems to have been that the punishment would be the same “as would be inflicted in case the like offense had been committed on a free white person, and on the like proof” (see the [Georgia constitution of 1798](https://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/topics/government/related_article/constitutions/georgia-constitution-of-1798#Article%20IV), the [Texas Constitution of 1845](https://tarltonapps.law.utexas.edu/constitutions/texas1845/a8), or the [Alabama Constitution of 1861](http://www.legislature.state.al.us/aliswww/history/constitutions/1861/1861_6.html#anchor373340)), and not merely a fine. An [“1821 South Carolina law imposed the death penalty even on slave owners who were convicted of slave murder”](https://www.aaihs.org/homicide-justified-the-legality-of-killing-slaves-in-the-atlantic-world/), although that article details the difficulties of actually getting a conviction in such cases, including prohibitions on hearing any testimony from slaves against masters. (All three of those slave-state constitutions do contain language that those protections would not apply in the case of “insurrection” by the slave in question, and the Georgia Constitution of 1798 also has an exception to the law against murdering a slave if “such death should happen by accident in giving such slave moderate correction”.) ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/11 "2019-06-24T00:59:09Z")
Well, there was the case of the[LaLauries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_LaLaurie). They were beyond the pale even for the antebellum south, and had to flee to France to escape an enraged mob after it was discovered what they were doing to their slaves. The family mansion is a staple on the New Orleans ghost tours and Madame Delphine earned her own spot as a character in a season of American Horror Story. But I suspect their case was unique. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2019, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/punishment-of-slave-owners/835907/12 "2019-06-24T01:37:10Z")
> [@Toxgoddess](#): > > Well, there was the case of the[LaLauries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_LaLaurie). They were beyond the pale even for the antebellum south […] But I suspect their case was unique. I wonder. I’m inclined to think that on the contrary, the comparatively [multiracial composition of urban Louisiana society up to the 1830s](https://daily.jstor.org/the-free-people-of-color-of-pre-civil-war-new-orleans/) may have resulted in the LaLauries’ atrocities being taken unusually seriously in their community. It would not surprise me if there were plenty of rural slaveholding districts in the American South where outright torture of enslaved people by their white owners was a fairly routine phenomenon that may have provoked some disapproval, but no outrage or rioting, among more humane white people.