other tortures. 2.
The proviso grants full license to a master to kill his slave, if the
slave _resist_ him. The North Carolina Bench has decided that this law
contemplates not only actual resistance to punishment, &c., but also
_offering_ to resist. (Stroud's Sketch, 37.) If, for example, a slave
undergoing the process of branding should resist by pushing aside the
burning stamp; or if wrought up to frenzy by the torture of the lash,
he should catch and hold it fast; or if he break loose from his master
and run, refusing to stop at his command; or if he _refuse_ to be
flogged; or struggle to keep his clothes on while his master is trying
to strip him; if, in these, or any one of a hundred other ways he
_resist_, or offer, or _threaten_ to resist the infliction; or, if the
master attempt the violation of the slave's wife, and the husband
resist his attempts without the least effort to injure him, but merely
to shield his wife from his assaults, this law does not merely permit,
but it _authorizes_ the master to murder the slave on the spot.

The brutality of these two provisos brands its authors as barbarians.
But the third cause of exemption could not be outdone by the
legislation of fiends. 'DYING under MODERATE _correction_!' MODERATE
_correction_ and DEATH--cause and effect! 'Provided ALWAYS,' says the
law, 'this act shall not extend to any slave dying under _moderate
correction_!' Here is a formal proclamation of impunity to murder--an
express pledge of _acquittal_ to all slaveholders who wish to murder
their slaves, a legal absolution--an indulgence granted before the
commission of the crime! Look at the phraseology. Nothing is said of
maimings, dismemberments, skull fractures, of severe bruisings, or
lacerations, or even of floggings; but a word is used the
common-parlance import of which is, _slight chastisement_; it is not
even _whipping_, but '_correction_' And as if hypocrisy and malignity
were on the rack to outwit each other, even that weak word must be
still farther diluted; so '_moderate_' is added: and, to crown the
climax, compounded of absurdity, hypocrisy, and cold-blooded murder,
the _legal definition_ of 'moderate correction' is covertly given;
which is, _any punishment_ that KILLS the victim. All inflictions are
either _moderate_ or _immoderate_; and the design of this law was
manifestly to shield the murderer from conviction, _by carrying on its
face the rule for its own interpretation_; thus adver