UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

"
that
quires no
ordinary nerve to read over the
counts of this indictment. Nobody, one
would suppose,
could willingly read them
twice. One would think that it would have
American men, that this catalogue of horrors
the
"the
KEY TO UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 81
IF any,
did not amount to a murder ! and,in
cool language of legalprecision, that
offence, amounted to manslaughter;"
and that an American jury
found that the offence was murder in the
second degree.Any one who reads the
think that, if this
in Virginia,
indictment willcertainly
be murder in the second degree,
one mightearnestly pray to be murdered
in the firstdegree țo begin with.
Had Souther walked up to the man, and
shot him throughthe head with a pistol,
before white witnesses, that would have been
murder
in thefirstdegree. As he preferred the
to spendtwelve hours in killing him
court below. Furthermore,he doubts
by
torture, under the name of whether the annals of jurisprudence furnish
" chastisement"
a case of equalatrocity, wherein certainly
that, says the verdict, is murder in the
he appears to he not far wrong : and he
second degree; " because" says
the billof
also states unequivocally the principle that
exceptions, with admirable coolness,
" itdid
killing
not appear that it toas the designof the
a slave by torture under the name
prisoner to killthe of correction is murder in the firstdegree:
slave,UNLESS SUCII DE- SIGN
BE PROPERLY INFERABLE FROM THE
MANNER, MEANS AND DURATION,
PUNISHMENT.
The
OF THE
an opinion, however, is expressed cautiously,
and with a becomingdiffidence, and is balanced
by the very striking fact,which isalso
quotedin this remarkable paper, that the
prisoner frequently declared, while the slave
was undergoing the punishment, that he believed
the slave was feigning and pretending
to be suffering, when he was not. This
view appears to have struck the court as
"
eminentlyprobable, as going a longway
to prove the propriety Souther's intentions,
making it at least extremelyprobable
that onlycorrection was intended.
It seems, also țhat Southerșo
6
farfrom
being crushed by the united opinion of the
community, found those to back him who
considered five years in the penitentiary an
unjustseverity for his crime,and hence the
laida cold hand of horror on
every heart ; billofexceptions from which we have quoted,
the communitywould have risen, and the appeal to the SuperiorCourt ; and
by an universal sentimentțo shake out hence the form in which the case stands
the man, as Paul shook the viperfrom his in law-books,
" Souther v. the Commonwealth."
hand. It seems, however țhat they were
Souther evidently considers himself
quiteself-possessed; that lawyerscalmly an ill-used man, and itisin thischaracter
sat, and examined,and cross-examined, on that he appears before the SuperiorCourt.
particulars known beforeonlyin the records As yet there has been no particular
of the Inquisition; that it was "ably and overflow of humanityin the treatment of
earnestly argued"by educated,intelligent, the case. The manner in which it has been
discussed so far reminds one of nothing so
much as of some discussionswhich the reader
may have seen quotedfrom the records of
the Inquisition, with regard to the propriety
of roasting the feetof children who have not
arrived at
view to eliciting evidence.
the age of thirteen years, with a
Let us now come to the decisionof the
SuperiorCourt,which the editor of the
Courier "fEnquirerthinks so particularly
enlightened and humane. Judge Field
thinks that the case is a very atrocious one,
and in this respecthe seems to differmaterially
from judge,jury and lawyers, of
and here too, certainly, everybodywill
think that he isalsoright; the only wonder
being that any
man could ever have been
this principle quite as
called
billevidently seems to have a leaning
to express such an opinion, judicially.
to the idea that twelve hours But
spent in beating,
he states,quite as unequivocally as
JudgeRuffin,
stamping,scalding, burning and
that awful principle of slavelaws
țhat the law cannot interferewith the
mutilating
a human being,mightpossibly
considered
as
presumption of somethingbeyond the
master for any amount of torture inflicted
on his slave which does not result in death.
limitsof lawful chastisement. So startling The decision, if it establishes anything, establishes
strongly as
itdoes the other. Let us hear the words
of the decision :
It has been decided by this court,in Turner's
case, that the owner of a slave, for the malicious,
cruel and excessive beatingofhis own slave,cannot
be indicted. ******
It is the policyofthe law,in respectto the relation
of master and slave,and for the sake of securing
proper subordination and obedience on the pariof the
slave țo protectthe master from prosecution in all
such cases, even if the whipping and punishmentbe
malicious, cruel and
-
excessive.
What follows as a corollary from
remarkable declaration is
"
this, that
this
ifthe