Early tides in manumission cases Frazier v. Executors of Frazier – South Carolina, 1835 (2 Hill Equity 304); Trotter v. Blocker – Alabama, 1837 (6 Porter 269); Ross v. Vertner – Mississippi, 1840 (5 Howard 305); Carmille v. Carmille’s Administrator – South Carolina, 1842 (2 McMullen 454)
“Nothing will more assuredly defeat our institution of slavery, than harsh legislation rigorously enforced. … If it was so that a man dared not make provision to make more comfortable faithful slaves, hard indeed would be the condition of slavery. For then no motive could be held out for good conduct; and the good and the bad would stand alike. Such has never been the rule applied to our slaves, and such I hope it will never be.” – Chief Justice O’Neall, in Carmille Shifting tides Prater’s Adminstrator v. Darby – Alabama, 1854 (24 Ala. 496); Adams v. Bass – Georgia, 1855 (18 Ga. 130); Cleland v. Waters – Georgia, 1855 (19 Ga. 35); Mitchell v. Wells – Mississippi, 1859 (37 Miss. 235)
| “The [anti-emancipation] statute is founded on deep policy, and was intended to prevent emancipation of slaves as a great political evil, dangerous to the institutions of the State, and injurious to the property and interests of the citizens. … Such an easy evasion would be making the statute a mere cobweb.” – Chancellor Henry W. DeSaussure, in Frazier “The removal of slaves belonging to citizens of the State, and their emancipation in parts beyond her territorial limits, was no injury to her.” – Chief Justice John B. O’Neall, reversing DeSaussure in Frazier “If emancipation were allowed, at the mere volition of the master, consequences, disastrous to the quite of the country would most likely result, - the public would be burthened with the charge of more paupers than it would be convenient to support, and slaves, themselves, would be turned loose upon society, whether from age, or the want of it, could not provide the comforts or even the necessaries of life.. And last, though not least, the demoralizing tendency of such a policy would be such as should induce every Christian and philanthropist to deprecate its toleration.” - Justice Henry Collier, in Trotter “Placed thus beyond our limits, their freedom could not be the subject of animadversion by the municipal laws of Mississippi, whose rigorous police regulations on this subject, were designated for the security of slave owners in the state, against the dangers of too great an increase of free negroes, whose example and whose means too of sowing the seeds of mischief, of insubordination, perhaps of revolt, amongst the slaves in their neighborhood, was very justly to be apprehended and guarded. It is not the policy of Mississippi to augment her slave population.” - Justice James Trotter, in Ross “This fungus [freeing all slaves who set foot on free soil] has been engrafted upon their [northern states’] Codes by the foul and fell spirit of modern fanaticism … We may not be able to … restrain the master in his lifetime from removing whithersoever he pleases with his property; but when the owner has kept them as long as he can enjoy them, shall he, from an ignorance of the scriptural basis upon which the institution of slavery rests, or from a total disregard to the peace and welfare of the community which survive him, invoke the aid of the Courts of this State to carry into execution his false and fatal views of humanity?” - Chief Justice Joseph Lumpkin, in Cleland “In Ross v. Vertner, in addition to limiting the policy of this State to the ‘prevention of the increase of free negroes therein,’ it was further asserted that ‘It is not the policy of Mississippi to augment her slave population.” …. But in 1846 a different state of things existed … [Ross] overturn[ed] our laws and policy, against the emancipation of slaves domiciled in this State, at the suit of the avowed public enemy of both.” - Judge William Harris, in Mitchell |
EMPIRE OF LAWS - The Legal History of the 50 American States > 6. DEEP SOUTH LEGAL HISTORY > 6.3 Deep South: The Antebellum Era (1831-1861) > 6.3.1 Deep South (1831-1861): The Nullification Crisis > 6.3.2 The Heart of Slavery: Limits of Discipline, Limits of Freedom >