CHAPTER VI.

SLAVES CAN POSSESS NOTHING.

Being Property themselves, they can own no Property, nor make any Contract.

MAN was created proprietor of the earth, with dominion over the beasts of the field. The humanity of the slave is denied, by denying to him any share in this original right of human nature or capability of its exercise. He is "not ranked among sentient beings, but among things." A chattel cannot be the owner of a chattel. The slave can possess nothing nor acquire any thing but what must belong to his master." (Civil Code, Art. 35.) They "cannot take by purchase or descent."

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"Slaves have no legal rights in things, real or personal; but whatever they may acquire, belongs, in point of law, to their masters." (Stroud, pp. 25, 45.) "Slaves can make no contract." (Ib., 25, 61.)

"Slaves are incapable of inheriting or transmitting property." (Civil Code, Art. 945.)

By the Roman law, the slave might possess what was called his peculium, or what his master might, by stipulation, accord to him, and which, having

thus stipulated, he could not afterwards take from him. By this law, slaves acquired property, sometimes embarked in commerce, redeemed themselves and amassed fortunes; or, in other cases, without an absolute purchase of themselves, paid their masters an annuity, as the price of their services, and attended to their own affairs. Not so in republican and Christian America! The "legal relation" here is another thing. The only exception, approximating the Roman code in this particular, so far as we know, is found in the Civil Code of LOUISIANA, as follows:

"All that a slave possesses belongs to his master, he possesses nothing of his own except his peculium, that is to say, the sum of money or movable estate, which his master chooses he should possess." (Art. 175; see 1 Martin's Digest, 616.)

Yet, in the same Code stands the following:

"Slaves cannot dispose of or receive by donation, inter vivos or mortis causa, unless they have been previously and expressly enfranchised conformably to law, or unless they are expressly enfranchised by the act by which the donation is made to them." (Art. 1462.)

"The earnings of slaves and the price of their service belong to their owners, who have their action to recover the amount of those who have employed them." (Louisiana Code of Practice, Art. 103.)

Except in the permission of a peculium, the laws of the other States on this subject are similar to those of Louisiana.

SOUTH CAROLINA.-"Slaves cannot take by descent or purchase." (4 Desaussure's Chancery Reports, 266, Bynum vs. Bostwick.)

NORTH CAROLINA." Slaves cannot take by sale, or devise, or descent." "A devise of land to be rented

out, for the maintenance of a slave, was adjudged to be void." (1 Cameron and Norwood's Reports, 353; same decision, 1 Taylor's Reports, 209.)

MARYLAND.-A gift, bequest, or devise, made to a slave, by any one not his owner, would be void, (see Dulany's opinion, 1 Maryland Reports, 561,) though such a devise of real or personal estate, made by the owner of a slave, has been held to entitle him to freedom, as the implied intention of the owner. (Hall vs. Mullin, 5 Harris and Johnson's Reports, 190.)

In "Wheeler's Law of Slavery" may be found ample evidence that this feature of the Slave Code (the incapacity of the slave to possess property) is not a dead letter, but recognized by the courts, and enforced whenever there is occasion, not only to the letter of the statute, but by an application of the principle and spirit of the enactment, in a contingency which legislative sagacity did not, probably, foresee.

A slave, for instance, accidentally found a sum of money, in bank bills, which some one took from him and carried to the bank. The owner of the slave boy brought an action of trover against the bank for the sum, and recovered it by judgment of court. Judge Safford said:

"Our slaves can do nothing in their own right,

can hold no property, can neither buy, sell, barter, nor dispose of any thing, without express permission from the master or overseer; so that every thing they can possess or do is, in legal contemplation, on authority of the master."

Judge Crenshaw said:

"A slave is in absolute bondage; he has no civil right, and can hold no property, except at the will and pleasure of his master. A slave is a rational being, and endowed with understanding and volition, like the rest of mankind; and whatever he lawfully acquires, and gains possession of, by finding or otherwise, is the acquirement and possession of the masA slave cannot take property by descent o purchase." (Brandon et al. vs. Merchants' and Planters' Bank of Huntsville, 1 Stewart's Ala. Re port, 320; S. P. Bynum vs. Bostwick, 4 Desaussure, 266; Wheeler's Law of Slavery, pp. 6, 7.)

ter.

In the preceding decision, the manhood, the reason, the understanding, the volition of the slave are distinctly recognized, and for the express purpose of claiming all the acquirements of such a being as the property of his master-equivalent to the claim of absolute proprietorship in the human soul itself! The theory and the practice of slavery are here found to be in harmony, and the courts enforce the enactments of the legislatures.

In a note to the preceding decision, Mr.Wheeler says, (p. 7:) "These principles prevail in all the States, and are taken from the civil law, and were adopted in all, except Connecticut, and perhaps Massachusetts."

"Hall vs. Mullin, 5 Har. and John's Md. Report, 190. The Court held that no legal contract, whatever, could be made with a slave, without the consent of his master." (Ib., p. 7.)

"In Jackson ex. dem. the People vs. Lervey, 5 Cowen's Rep., 397, the Court held that a slave at common law could not contract matrimony, nor could the child of a slave take by descent or inheritance." (Ib., p. 7.)

"Free Lucy and Frank, Fall Term, 1826, 4 Monroe's Rep., 167; Emmerson vs. Howland, 1 Mason's Rep., 45. The Court held that contracts made by negroes while in slavery, do not bind them when liberated; and consequently a plea by a free negro, that a writing sued on was delivered when he was a slave, is good." (Ib., p. 190.)

In a note on this topic, Mr. Wheeler says: "One general principle prevails in all the States, and in the British, Spanish, and Portuguese West Indies, and that is, that a slave cannot make a contract, not even the contract of matrimony." And he cites numerous authorities for the statement. (Ib., p. 190.)

promises and Even the free

The slave is thus taught that his agreements are of no binding force! negro, as has been seen, is taught the same lesson in respect to his former condition! Yet those by whom these lessons are taught affect to marvel at the moral obtuseness of the negroes, and consider themselves as occupying a high moral eminence above them.

A warrant for one thousand acres of land, issued to a slave in Tennessee, for military services as a