Slave Rights in the South

[SpeedwayRyan]

@Xema

Can someone who kills a dog be charged with murder?

This is without research, but I’d say generally it would be cruelty to animals or a related offense…unless it’s a police dog in the line of duty. Pretty sure that’s the same as killing any police officer, at least in some states. Anyone know more on this?

[SpeedwayRyan]

Follow up to add that it doesn’t look to be murder if you kill a K9 officer, but it is a felony and generally the penalties more stiff than killing a non-police dog. If killing a police dog in the line of duty doesn’t get a murder charge, I don’t think any other situation would result in one…that’s about as bad as it gets in the eyes of the law.

[Little_Nemo]

@Spoke

This being GQ…cites?

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856):

The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen?..They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect…It is too plain for argument, that they have never been regarded as a part of the people or citizens of the State, nor supposed to possess any political rights which the dominant race might not withhold or grant at their pleasure…Words could hardly have been used which more strongly mark the line of distinction between the citizen and the subject; the free and the subjugated races. The latter were not even counted when the inhabitants of a State were to be embodied in proportion to its numbers for the general defence. And it cannot for a moment be supposed, that a class of persons thus separated and rejected from those who formed the sovereignty of the States, were yet intended to be included under the words ‘free inhabitants,’ in the preceding article, to whom privileges and immunities were so carefully secured in every State…A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a “citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its “people or citizens.” Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them.

These are excerpts obviously. But they are in keeping with the overall context of the ruling (which cites numerous precedents in support of it) that a slave does not have and could never have any rights. Laws could be passed against killing a slave but only in the same sense as a law could be passed against arson. Killing a slave or burning down a house was a crime against society not against the rights of the victim. A slave had no more rights of his own than a dog or a house did.

[Boyo_Jim]

@Spoke

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.

My earlier cites supports the first claim to some extent. The EH.Net encyclopedia:

…Despite the respect Southerners held for the power of masters, the law – particularly in the thirty years before the Civil War – limited owners somewhat. Southerners feared that unchecked slave abuse could lead to theft, public beatings, and insurrection. People also thought that hungry slaves would steal produce and livestock…

Southern law did encourage benevolence, at least if it tended to supplement the lash and shackle. Court opinions in particular indicate the belief that good treatment of slaves could enhance labor productivity, increase plantation profits, and reinforce sentimental ties…

Also, cckerberos cite in post #8:

…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. …

[Spoke]

@Little_Nemo

Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856)

There is a difference between these two statements:

“Slaves do not have constitutional rights.”

“Slaves are unworthy of any humanitarian concern.”