their slaves whether by private persons or public functionaries.  When in 1787, for example, a slave boy in Maryland reported to his master that two strangers by the name of Maddox had whipped him for killing a dog while Mr. Samuel Bishop had stood by and let them do it, the master, who presumably had no means of reaching the two strangers, wrote Bishop demanding an explanation of his conduct and intimating that if this were not satisfactorily forthcoming by the next session of court, proceedings would be begun against him[19].  While this complainant might not have been able to procure a judgment against a merely acquiescent bystander, the courts were quite ready to punish actual transgressors.  In sustaining the indictment of a private citizen for such offense the chief-justice of North Carolina said in 1823:  “For all purposes necessary to enforce the obedience of the slave and render him useful as property the law secures to the master a complete authority over him, and it will not lightly interfere with the relation thus established.  It is a more effectual guarantee of his right of property when the slave is protected from wanton abuse by those who have no power over him, for it cannot be disputed that a slave is rendered less capable of performing his master’s service when he finds himself exposed by law to the capricious violence of every turbulent man in the community.  Mitigated as slavery is by the humanity of our laws, the refinement of manners, and by public opinion which revolts at every instance of cruelty towards them, it would be an anomaly in the system of police which affects them if the offense stated in the verdict [the striking of a slave] were not indictable."[20] Likewise the South Carolina Court of Appeals in 1850 endorsed the fining of a public patrol which had whipped the slaves at a quilting party despite their possession of written permission from their several masters.  The Court said of the quilting party:  “The occasion was a perfectly innocent one, even meritorious....  It would simply seem ridiculous to suppose that the safety of the state or any of its inhabitants was implicated in such an assemblage as this.”  And of the patrol’s limitations:  “A judicious freedom in the administration of our police laws for the lower order must always have respect for the confidence which the law reposes in the discretion of the master."[21]

[Footnote 17:  E. g., Letter of “a citizen” in the Charleston City Gazette, Aug. 17, 1825.]

[Footnote 18:  E. g., L’Abeille (New Orleans), Aug. 15, 1841, editorial.]

[Footnote 19:  Letter signed “R.T.,” Port Tobacco, Md., Aug. 19, 1787.  MS. in the Library of Congress.]

[Footnote 20:  The State v.  Hale, in Hawks, North Carolina Reports, V, 582.  See similarly Munford, Virginia Reports, I, 288.]

[Footnote 21:  The State v.  Boozer et al., in Strobhart, South Carolina Law Reports, V, 21.  This is quoted at some length in H.M.  Henry, Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina, pp. 146-148.]