The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

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 him-

  self 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 pre-

  vail--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 con-

  siderable 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 asafœtida 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 blood-

  shot; just under the scalp, found the effects of a single blow, just over the right

  ear; after removing the scalp, lifted the bone; no rupture of any blood-vessel;

  some softening of the brain in the upper hemisphere; there was considerable extra-

  vasation 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 butt-

  end 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 re-

  lied 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 conclu-

  sion 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 dissec-

  tion 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 evide
nce 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 ex-

  travasation 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 investi-

  gation 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 dis-

  torted 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 pro-

  tection alike over the white man and the humblest slave.”

  Lastly, notice the decision of the judge, which has become

  law in South Carolina. What point does it establish? That

  the simple oath of the master, in face of all circumstantial

  evidence to the contrary, may clear him, when the murder of a

  slave is the question. And this trial is paraded as a triumphant

  specimen of legal impartiality and equity! “If the light that

  is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE GOOD OLD TIMES.

  “A refinement in humanity of doubtful policy.”

  --B. F. Hunt. The author takes no pleasure in presenting to her readers the

  shocking details of the following case. But it seems necessary

  to exhibit what were the actual workings of the ancient law of

  South Carolina, which has bee
n characterised as one “conformed

  to the policy, and approved by the wisdom,” of the fathers of

  that State, and the reform of which has been called “a refinement

  in humanity of doubtful policy.”

  It is well, also, to add the charge of Judge Wilds, partly for

  its intrinsic literary merit and the nobleness of its sentiments,

  but principally because it exhibits such a contrast as could

  scarcely be found elsewhere between the judge's high and indig-

  nant sense of justice and the shameful impotence and imbecility

  of the laws under which he acted.

  The case was brought to the author's knowledge by a letter

  from a gentleman of Pennsylvania, from which the following is

  an extract:--

  Some time between the years 1807 and 1810, there was lying in the harbour of

  Charleston a ship commanded by a man named Slater. His crew were slaves;

  one of them committed some offence, not specified in the narrative. The captain

  ordered him to be bound and laid upon the deck; and there, in the harbour of

  Charleston, in the broad daylight, compelled another slave-sailor to chop off his

  head. The affair was public--notorious. A prosecution was commenced against

  him; the offence was proved beyond all doubt--perhaps, indeed, it was not

  denied--and the judge, in a most eloquent charge or rebuke of the defendant,

  expressed his sincere regret that he could inflict no punishment, under the laws

  of the State.

  I was studying law when the case was published in “Hall's American Law

  Journal,” vol. i. I have not seen the book for twenty-five or thirty years. I may

  be in error as to names, &c., but while I have life and my senses the facts of the

  case cannot be forgotten.

  The following is the “charge” alluded to in the above letter.

  It was pronounced by the Honourable Judge Wilds, of South

  Carolina, and is copied from Hall's Law Journal, i. 67:--

  John Slater! You have been convicted by a jury of your country of the wilful

  murder of your own slave; and I am sorry to say, the short, impressive, and un-

  contradicted testimony on which that conviction was founded, leaves but too little

  room to doubt its propriety.