The following is a law of Georgia.—­’If any slave shall presume to strike any white person, such slave shall, upon trial and conviction before the justice or justices, suffer such punishment for the first offence as they shall think fit, not extending to life or limb; and for the second offence, DEATH.’—­Prince’s Digest, 450.  The same law exists in South Carolina, with this difference, that death is made the punishment for the third offence.  In both states, the law contains this remarkable proviso:  ’Provided always, that such striking be not done by the command and in the defence of the person or property of the owner, or other person having the government of such slave, in which case the slave shall be wholly excused!’ According to this law, if a slave, by the direction of his OVERSEER, strike a white man who is beating said overseer’s dog, ‘the slave shall be wholly excused;’ but if the white man has rushed upon the slave himself, instead of the dog, and is furiously beating him, if the slave strike back but a single blow, the legal penalty is ’ANY punishment not extending to life or limb;’ and if the tortured slave has a second onset made upon him, and, after suffering all but death, again strike back in self-defence, the law KILLS him for it.  So, if a female slave, in obedience to her mistress, and in defence of ‘her property,’ strike a white man who is kicking her mistress’ pet kitten, she ’shall be wholly excused,’ saith the considerate law:  but if the unprotected girl, when beaten and kicked herself, raise her hand against her brutal assailant, the law condemns her to ’any punishment, not extending to life or limb; and if a wretch assail her again, and attempt to violate her chastity, and the trembling girl, in her anguish and terror, instinctively raise her hand against him in self-defence, she shall, saith the law, ‘suffer DEATH.’

Reader, this diabolical law is the ‘public opinion’ of Georgia and South Carolina toward the slaves.  This is the vaunted ‘protection’ afforded them by their ‘high-souled chivalry.’  To show that the ‘public opinion’ of the slave states far more effectually protects the property of the master than the person of the slave, the reader is referred to two laws of Louisiana, passed in 1819.  The one attaches a penalty ‘not exceeding one thousand dollars,’ and ’imprisonment not exceeding two years,’ to the crime of ’cutting or breaking any iron chain or collar,’ which any master of slaves has used to prevent their running away; the other, a penalty ’not exceeding five hundred dollars,’ to ’wilfully cutting out the tongue, putting out the eye, cruelly burning, or depriving any slave of any limb.’  Look at it—­the most horrible dismemberment conceivable cannot be punished by a fine of more than five hundred dollars.  The law expressly fixes that, as the utmost limit, and it may not be half that sum; not a single moment’s imprisonment stays the wretch in his career, and the next hour he may cut out another slave’s tongue, or burn his hand off.  But let the same man break a chain put upon a slave, to keep him from running away, and, besides paying double the penalty that could be exacted from him for cutting off a slave’s leg, the law imprisons him not exceeding two years!