"A pecuniary mulct was the only restraint upon the wilful murder of a slave, from the year 1740 to 1821, a period of more than eighty years. I find in the case of _The State vs. M'Gee, 1 Bay's Reports_, 164, it is said incidentally by Messrs. Pinckney and Ford, counsel for the State, that the _frequency_ of the offence was owing to the nature of the punishment. This was said in the public court-house by men of great respectability; nevertheless, thirty years elapsed before a change of the law was effected. So far as I have been able to learn, the following section has disgraced the statute-book of South Carolina from the year 1740 to the present hour: 'In case any person shall wilfully cut out the tongue, put out the eye, _cruelly_ scald, burn, or deprive any slave of any limb, or member, or shall inflict any other cruel punishment,--[_otherwise than by whipping, or beating, with a horsewhip, cowskin, switch, or small stick, or by putting irons on, or confining, or imprisoning such slave_,]--every such person shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds, current money.' Here is direct legislation to _sanction_ beating without limit, with horsewhip or cowskin,--the application of irons to the human body,--and perpetual incarceration in a dungeon, according to the will of the master; and the mutilation of limbs is paid by a trifling penalty! "The revised code of Louisiana declares: 'The slave is entirely subject to the will of the master, who may correct and chastise him, though not with _unusual_ rigor, nor so as to maim or mutilate him, or to expose him to the danger of loss of life, or to cause his death.'" Who shall decide what punishment is _unusual_? In Missouri, if a slave refuses to obey his or her master, mistress, overseer, or employer, in any lawful commands, such slaves may be committed to the county jail, there to remain as long as his owner pleases. In some of the States there are indeed restraining laws; but they are completely ineffectual, from the difficulty of obtaining the evidence of _white men_. "The same despotic power can be exerted by the attorney, manager, driver, or any other person who is, for the time being, placed over the slave by order of the owner, or his delegates. The following is the language of the Louisiana code; and it represents the established customs of all the slaveholding States: 'The condition of a slave being merely a passive one, his subordination to his master, and to all who _represent_ him, is not susceptible of any modification, or restriction, [except in what can incite the slave to the commission of crime] in such manner, that he owes to his master, and to all his family, a respect without bounds, and an absolute obedience; and he is consequently to execute all the orders, which he receives from his said master, or from them.'"