When John Mann shot a rented slave in the back for running away to avoid a beating, he was convicted of battery. In State v. Mann, 2 Dev. (13 N.C.) 229 (1829), the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the conviction; Thomas Ruffin's opinion for the court held that "the slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible, that there is no appeal from his master," and revealed the brutal reality of slavery:

Arguments drawn from the well established principles which confer and restrain the authority of the parent over the child, the tutor over the pupil, the master over the apprentice, have been pressed on us. The Court does not recognize their application. There is no likeness Between the cases. They are in opposition to each other, and there is an impassable gulf between them. The difference is that which exists between...