RATE _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 advertising,
beforehand, courts and juries, that the fact of any infliction
_producing death_, was no evidence that it was _immoderate_, and that
beating a man to death came within the legal meaning of 'moderate
correction!' The _design_ of the legislature of North Carolina in
framing this law is manifest; it was to produce the impression upon
the world, that they had so high a sense of justice as voluntarily to
grant adequate protection to the lives of their slaves. This is
ostentatiously set forth in the preamble, and in the body of the law.
That this was the most despicable hypocrisy, and that they had
predetermined to grant no such protection, notwithstanding the pains
taken to get the _credit_ of it, is fully revealed by the _proviso_,
which was framed in such a way as to nullify the law, for the express
accommodation of slaveholding gentlemen murdering their slaves. All
such find in this proviso a convenient accomplice before the fact, and
a packed jury, with a ready-made verdict of 'not guilty,' both
gratuitously furnished by the government! The preceding law and
proviso are to be found in Haywood's Manual, 530; also in Laws of
Tennessee, Act of October 23, 1791; and in Stroud's Sketch, 37.

Enough has bee