those laws are merely public
opinion _in legal forms_. We repeat it,--public opinion made them
slaves, and keeps them slaves; in other words, it sunk them from men
to chattels, and now, forsooth, this same public opinion will see to
it, that these _chattels_ are treated like _men!_

By looking a little into this matter, and finding out how this 'public
opinion' (law) protects the slaves in some particulars, we can judge
of the amount of its protection in others. 1. It protects the slaves
from _robbery_, by declaring that those who robbed their mothers may
rob them and their children. "All negroes, mulattoes, or mestizoes who
now are, or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their
offspring, are hereby declared to be, and shall remain, forever,
hereafter, absolute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the
mother."--Law of South Carolina, 2 Brevard's Digest, 229. Others of
the slave states have similar laws.

2. It protects their _persons_, by giving their master a right to
flog, wound, and beat them when he pleases. See Devereaux's North
Carolina Reports, 263.--Case of the State vs. Mann, 1829; in which the
Supreme Court decided, that a master who _shot_ at a female slave and
wounded her, because she got loose from him when he was flogging her,
and started to run from him, had violated _no law_, AND COULD NOT BE
INDICTED. It has been decided by the highest courts of the slave
states generally, that assault and battery upon a slave is not
indictable as a criminal offence.

The following decision on this point was made by the Supreme Court of
South Carolina in the case of the State vs. Cheetwood, 2 Hill's
Reports, 459.

_Protection of slaves_.--"The criminal offence of assault and battery
_cannot, at common law, be committed on the person of a slave_. For,
notwithstanding for some purposes a slave is regarded in law as a
person, yet generally he is a mere chattel personal, and his right of
personal protection belongs to his master, who can maintain an action
of trespass for the battery of his slave.

"There can be therefore no offence against the state for a mere
beating of a slave, unaccompanied by any circumstances of cruelty, or
an attempt to kill and murder. The peace of the state is not thereby
broken; for a slave is not generally regarded as legally capable of
being within the peace of the state. He is not a citizen, and _is not
in that character entitled to her protection_."

This 'public opinion'