[Footnote 14:  Police Regulations of the Parish of West Baton Rouge (La.), passed at a regular meeting held at the Court House of said Parish on the second and third days of June, A.D. 1828 (Baton Rouge, 1828), pp. 8-11.  For a copy of this pamphlet I am indebted to Professor W.L.  Fleming of Louisiana State University.]

[Footnote 15:  D.B.  Sanford, Police Jury Code of the Parish of East Feliciana, Louisiana (Clinton, La., 1859), pp. 98-101.]

In general, the letter of the law in slaveholding states at the middle of the nineteenth century presumed all persons with a palpable strain of negro blood to be slaves unless they could prove the contrary, and regarded the possession of them by masters as presumptive evidence of legal ownership.  Property in slaves, though by some of the statutes assimilated to real estate for certain technical purposes, was usually considered as of chattel character.  Its use and control, however, were hedged about with various restraints and obligations.  In some states masters were forbidden to hire slaves to themselves or to leave them in any unusual way to their self-direction; and everywhere they were required to maintain their slaves in full sustenance whether young or old, able-bodied or incapacitated.  The manumission of the disabled was on grounds of public thrift nowhere permitted unless accompanied with provision for their maintenance, and that of slaves of all sorts was restricted in a great variety of ways.  Generally no consent by the slave was required in manumission, though in some commonwealths he might lawfully reject freedom in the form bestowed.[16] Masters might vest powers of agency in their slaves, but when so doing the masters themselves became liable for any injuries or derelictions ensuing.  In criminal prosecutions, on the other hand, slaves were considered as responsible persons on their own score and punishable under the laws applicable to them.  Where a crime was committed at the master’s express command, the master was liable and in some cases the slave also.  Slave offenders were commonly tried summarily by special inferior courts, though for serious crimes in some states by the superior courts by regular process.  Since the slaves commonly had no funds with which to pay fines, and no liberty of which to be deprived, the penalties imposed upon them for crimes and misdemeanors were usually death, deportation or lashes.  Frequently in Louisiana, however, and more seldom elsewhere, convicted slaves were given prison sentences.  By the intent of the law their punishments were generally more severe than those applied to white persons for the same offenses.  In civil transactions slaves had no standing as persons in court except for the one purpose of making claim of freedom; and even this must usually be done through some friendly citizen as a self-appointed guardian bringing suit for trespass in the nature of ravishment of ward.  The activities of slaves were elaborately