Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-05-19
r RICHMOND, VA.
WEDNESDAY MORNING, MAY 10.

ure, as we understand them, have nothing in
cent developments to shake conviction in the purity
OF his motives in the conscientious discharge of solemn
responsibility thrown upon him by the lava response
bility, which officer in elaboration can by moral
possibility, exercise from any other impulse than the gra
vest and most solemn of-duty Whatever opinion
may be entertained as to the proprey of the Governors
acton all lovers OF good ORDER decency and law must
probate the violence and injustice of the assaults of the
Wing press upon officer who has acted with what he
deems conscientious regard to his duty, under
| the constitution and the laws
We are glad that the Richmond Enquirer has
at last spoken the subject of Hatcher's pardon
and the thorough going message of the Governor.
But is it not little remarkable that the Enquirer
| does not condemn the act of Governor johnson,
which arrested the hand of the law, as it was
| about to smite negro who had without the
slightest admissible provocation, struck down his
overseer with an iron poker! Is there nothing to
condemn in the principles of the message, which
i'll order to justify the eniency of the Executive,
abolished the legal difference between the black
and white races as esta blished by our laws! We
were not at all astonished at the views ofthe mes
sage. Governor Johnson, by the pardon of the
| negro felon, whose hand and whose conscience, if
the brute has conscience, are red with Jack
sons unavenged blood, had made the case his
own He was obliged to defend his action and
this compelled him to occupy ground, which is
forbidden by the laws which establish negro sla-
slavery in this Commonwealth There never
was grosser act of usurpation, than in effect to
declare that master, overseer has not the
legal right to infict correction upon his slave
without at the same investing that slave with
the right, under the penalty Of transportation, of
knocking him in the head with an iron poker
But why would not axe or a hoe do as we'll
for we presume there is nothing in an iron poker
to recommend it particularly to the preference of
compassionate Governor Johnson. The dife-
| renee between having ones skull fractured with
| poker and split open with an axe, is not of an
| sential nature-de mimimis curat ler.
| We leave his Excellency in the undisturbed
possession of his principle when we only vary the
example. Imagine, reader, that you called
upon to witness the CHASTITY spectacle of master,
or his overseer, lying out at the woodward with
| his head cloven with axe But the circum-
stances that led to this shocking affair must not be
overlooked. The overseer had given one of the
slaves committed to his government a few stripes
with whip, on account of dleness and neglect
of duty The slave had then, in the heat of blood,
which in a0llite man would constitute the hom-
eide manslaughter, thrown the overseer to the
ground and fled-no, we forgot he first struck him
with death dealing instrument and then fled. The
white man of course dies, fora strong negro fellow
could not have struck him on the head with an axe,
or hoe poker, since that has become la1rful
weapon without producing DEATH Well,
for the negro's sentence. Murder is the charge!
Guilty or not guilty! Not guilty brisky res
ponds the Governor But the indignant voice of
tho oh hooI, a.,
judgment. Look at the difficult position in which
overseel's are placed. They undertake the man.
agement often of large estates, to be worked by
slave labor, 1t is high pecuniary trust that they
assume, and, honest men, they obliged to
discharge it faithfully. But the negroes won't
work. What is to be done then? Is the over
seer to betray the confidence of his employer, OF
is he to resort to measures of coersion fhe
lects the former alternative, he WILL in his own
eyes and the eyes of the public, forfeit the char
acter of correct man. But if he means to hold
Oh to his integrity, possession above price,
and discharge his duty faithfully and make the
idlers work, the bloody fate of Jackson will ad-
monish him of that which awaits himself.
| How any mind be so unjust as to impeach
the motives of the lenient and merciful Governor,
oOOiuS GLdI IL tuO VI Is
| followed, numbers of men now in the bloom of
| life to be stricken down with iron pokers OF
their substitutes, and consg ned to early graves
That surely is a merciful dispensation which
holds out impunity for such bloody work. I'll
another negro fellow under the excitement and
suffering of such punishment as Hatcher re-
ceived, shall follow Hatcher's example and say
his overseer, who will before the bar of Heaven,
and before the tribunal of the Estate of Virginia"
be responsible for his death Not the men who
have been charged with the daty of making laws
for that mans protection-for the law has extend
ed over him its shied-not the juries and courts.
for they have not proved defaulters to their duty.
Where, then, shall we fix this responsibility 1t
must rest upon that officer who, high above the
supervisory jurisdiction of appellate tribunals,
declares from his exalted position that when Jor-
dan Hatcher killed Jackson for striking him with
a whip, that he was not guilty of murder, but on
ly mansaughter without intent to kill, and the
punishment ought not to have been death, but only
transportation out of the United States.
We are heartily glad that the Richmond Enqui-
rer does not concur in this act of mercy extend
ed to murder, and does not concur in the
grounds upon which the pardon was rested We
heartily congratulate the slave that that
influential journal misunderstanding, that if by
chance, these dreadful doings had met with appro-
baton in that influential quarter, the whole
weight of the Virginia Democracy would have
been thrown against the masters right of disci-
pline, and that the principles of Governor John
sons message would have been transferred into
the Democratic platform.
P,,txx houa ban cd FROM, tboea lie
The organ of the Virginia Democracy has uttered
nd Hot ;a he