# Slave Rights in the South **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2010, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636 "2010-12-10T05:52:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/1 "2010-12-10T05:52:00Z")
So it is (say) 1860, I am in Mississippi, in the American deep South, I got acres of money. \*\*Were there any legal restrictions on how I could treat or use a slave? \*\* While I understand there were moral restrictions, people frowned on openly raping or hanging slaves in incorporated towns, what did the law say? Can we think of any actions taken against a slave-owner for mistreatment? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/2 "2010-12-10T06:06:05Z")
I know that Mississippi passed a slave code in 1822 that remained in force, with amendments, until emancipation. I’m having trouble finding it, and most of the excerpts I’ve found deal with restrictions on the slaves themselves. I did find this provision, though: > [@](#): > > No cruel or unusual punishment shall be inflicted on any slave within this state. And any master or person, entitled to the service of any slave, who shall inflict such cruel or unusual punishment, or shall authorize or permit the same to be inflicted, shall on conviction thereof, before any court having cognizance, be fined, according to the magnitude of the offense, at the discretion of the court, in any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars, to be paid into the treasury of the state, for the use and benefit of the literary fund. I don’t know to what extent this was ever enforced, especially because another law said that a black person couldn’t sue or give testimony in a court against a white person. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/3 "2010-12-10T06:30:26Z")
Thank you, so there were legal provisions. Anyone got anything else? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/4 "2010-12-10T07:10:37Z")
Probably not what you are looking for… but you could not buy and import African slaves in 1860. That had been banned some time before. And there were some issues about where you could take your slaves. If you brought them into areas where slavery was illegal, the might no longer be your slaves. There was some kerfluffle about this prior to the Civil War. IIRC Congress passed a Fugitive Slave Act which allowed owners to travel virtually anywhere in the US to retrieve runaway slaves, by force if necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/5 "2010-12-10T07:30:31Z")
I found this rather dense paper, which may ne of some interest: **[Securing the Leg Irons: Restriction of Legal Rights for Slaves in Virginia and Maryland, 1625 - 1791](http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/winter96/slavery.html)** There is relatively little consideration of what behavior was acceptable by slave owners. It focuses more on how the law dealt with the very concept of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/6 "2010-12-10T07:46:52Z")
Here’s another interesting [encyclopedia article](http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/wahl.slavery.us) on the subject. The rules varies widely from place to place. In some places, you could not -teach your slaves to read and write. -allow them to carry firearms. -use them to collect money from white people. -free them. -let them sit idle for extended periods. There is one relevant legal case cited: > [@](#): > > Southern masters enjoyed great freedom in their dealings with slaves. North Carolina Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin expressed the sentiments of many Southerners when he wrote in State v. Mann (1829): “The power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect.” ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/7 "2010-12-10T12:48:11Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Probably not what you are looking for… but you could not buy and import African slaves in 1860. That had been banned some time before. 52 years before, in 1808. I don’t know if he was related to North Carolina Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin, but an [Edmund Ruffin](http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Ruffin_Edmund_1794-1865) is usually credited with firing the first shot of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, although that’s disputed. These Ruffins had their hands all over slavery! ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/8 "2010-12-10T13:02:54Z")
Lots of interesting stuff in [The Statute Laws of the State of Tennessee](http://books.google.com/books?id=TlMvAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA320&lpg=PA320&dq=united+states+slave+murder+statute&source=bl&ots=ebT7LlUmY-&sig=_uk4-cbAN1yikVcj-t5a0dsZUDk&hl=en&ei=5CICTevIJ8nprAeiov2QDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false) (1831), including: > [@](#): > > If any person or persons, shall wilfully or maliciously, with malice aforethought, kill any negro or mulatto slave whatsoever, on due and legal conviction thereof, in any superior court of the district, wherein such offence shall have been committed, be deemed guilty of murder, as if such person so killed, had been a free man, and shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. For [a more general summary](http://law.jrank.org/pages/19059/Slavery-Law.html) of the status immediately pre-Civil War: > [@](#): > > After the Revolutionary period, the law in the South strengthened slavery as an institution. Ironically, one way of strengthening slavery was to make it less harsh, because this would make slave rebellions less likely and undercut abolitionists’ critiques of the institution. Thus, in the 1820s South Carolina prohibited branding, dismemberment, castration, and other barbaric forms of punishment that had been legal in the colonial period. Similarly, by 1860 all Southern states recognized that anyone, even a master, who killed a slave in cold blood could be charged with murder. In State v. Hoover (1839) the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for a master who tortured his slave to death. Shortly before the Civil War, a few Southern states made rape of a slave a crime, although there is no instance of a white man being prosecuted for such a crime. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/9 "2010-12-10T14:03:50Z")
Thank you all. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/10 "2010-12-10T16:21:28Z")
Not that this is really what you were asking, but presumably there was some system of penalties for someone who harmed _someone else’s_ slave. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/11 "2010-12-10T16:30:04Z")
The comparison is odious but true: slaves had essentially the same legal status that dogs have in modern society. White people were forbidden from committing certain acts of cruelty against a slave but it was considered more on the basis of maintaining social order rather than a recognition that the slave had any rights as an individual. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/12 "2010-12-10T16:30:13Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Not that this is really what you were asking, but presumably there was some system of penalties for someone who harmed _someone else’s_ slave. I’d be very surprised if there weren’t a civil action available in tort. Slaves are property. If you smash my TV, I’ve a cause of action against you. Same would hold, I should think, if you injure my slave. The only caveat being that, on this theory, I’m not sure I’d have a cause of action against you if you struck a slave without injuring him or her (and thus impairing his/her ability to work for me). A slave with a black eye isn’t significantly less productive, for example, than one without; but a slave with a broken arm certainly is. (Obviously, I’m not speaking in _defense_ of this hypothetical standard - slavery is a horrible thing. I’m just trying to reason out how the law would have worked.) ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/13 "2010-12-10T16:36:41Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > slaves had essentially the same legal status that dogs have in modern society. Can someone who kills a dog be charged with murder? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/14 "2010-12-10T16:55:09Z")
A comparison to horses is probably more accurate than to dogs. Slaves were generally thought of as intelligent (compared to other animals) livestock. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/15 "2010-12-10T17:07:21Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > White people were forbidden from committing certain acts of cruelty against a slave but it was considered more on the basis of maintaining social order rather than a recognition that the slave had any rights as an individual. Right, because we can’t allow for the possibility that slaveowners had any humanity whatsoever. :rolleyes: I suspect many took New Testament injunctions against abuse of slaves to heart. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/16 "2010-12-10T17:57:04Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > Not that this is really what you were asking, but presumably there was some system of penalties for someone who harmed _someone else’s_ slave. According to my first link, in TN assaulting someone else’s slave was legally equivalent to assaulting a white. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/17 "2010-12-10T18:25:37Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > A comparison to horses is probably more accurate than to dogs. Okay, then I’ll ask whether someone who kills a horse can be charged with murder? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/18 "2010-12-10T18:47:08Z")
> [@Xema](#): > > Okay, then I’ll ask whether someone who kills a horse can be charged with murder? I’m sure they can’t, which is why I sidestepped your question earlier. 😉 As usual, there’s no perfect analogy. I would say that slaves’ legal position was somewhere between that of women and that of livestock. I mentioned horses because I think it makes a better overall comparison than dogs, but certainly slaves weren’t regarded as equivalent to horses in all aspects, rather just in some. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/19 "2010-12-10T20:34:34Z")
> [@Spoke](#): > > Right, because we can’t allow for the possibility that slaveowners had any humanity whatsoever. Your knee appears to be jerking there. You might want to get that checked. The point I made was that the slaveowners were being held to a standard of humanity. But the people who were holding them to that standard were their peers not their slaves. A white person who wantonly killed a slave would have been regarded as having done something seriously wrong - but because of the violence of the act not because he violated the slave’s rights. Society thought it was wrong for slaveowners to kill, not for slaves to be killed. And that’s the comparison I made to the status of a dog in modern society. If we hear that somebody beat a dog to death, we’re shocked and we want that person to be punished. But that doesn’t mean we recognize that the dog had a fundamental right to life. Dogs die all the time - they’re euthanized in pounds, they starve to death in the wild, they get run over by cars. It’s the act of violence that disturbs us not the victim. We regard somebody beating an animal to death as something unnatural and inhuman. And we react against the inhumanity - not in defense of the dog. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636/20 "2010-12-10T22:34:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Society thought it was wrong for slaveowners to kill, not for slaves to be killed. > > …We regard somebody beating an animal to death as something unnatural and inhuman. And we react against the inhumanity - not in defense of the dog. This being GQ…_cites_? I’d say you are wrong on both counts. Your take on this discounts the possibility of feeling empathy either for a dog or a slave. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/slave-rights-in-the-south/563636.md?page=2)