The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1896-02-26
Washington Artillery of Charleston,
commanded by Maj A. NJ. Manigault,

Washington Artillery of Charleston,
commanded by Maj. A. NJ. Manigault,
guarded the Jail and surrounded the
scatfold when the prisoners were exc
cuted. The story of the case can be
found in Seventh Richardson, South
Carolina Reports, page 327. It is to
be hoped that the people of Colleton
of today will be as persistent in re-
pressing laWlessness as were their
progenitors in 1858.
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stoves key to
20 Uncle Toms Cabin contains the
sentence Of Judge Jamuel Willds on a
white man, Slater, convicted OF the
murder of his own slave in Charles
ton in 1907 There is no session dock
ct or journal among the court records
Of Charleston extant until 1888, and
it is owing to Mrs. Stoves pertinacity
and assiduity that the very notable
sentence was unearthed and given to
the public. Perhaps the Grimkc sis
tiers, two very violent anti-slavery agi'
tators in Charleston, furnished her
with it. Slater was not condemned to
death, as the punishment under the
act Of 174G, under which he was con-
victed and sentenced, was fine of
300 currency, equal to e100 sterling
and incapacit. - enjoy or receive
the profits of@A q eieee, eaaeee, place or en-
picyment, civil or military, and fun
able to pay this fine, rhen imprison
ment for seven years. 1t was the act
of 1921, under which Motley and
Blackledge were hanged, which chang
ed this tritling punishment to the
death penalty.
Judge Wild's sentence makes inte:
esting reading to the student Of negro
slavery in South Carolina, It reads,
in part, as follows:
John Slater, you have been con-
victed by jury of your country of
the wilful murder of your own slave;
and l am sorry to say the short, i'm
pressive, uncontradicted testimony on
which that conviction was founded
leaves but little room to doubt its pro-
priety. The annals of human deprav-
ity may be safely challenged for a
parallel to this unfeeling, bloody and
dlabolical transaction.
You caused your unofending, unre-
sisting slave to be bound hand and
foot, and by a refinement of cruelty
compelled his companion, perhaps the
friend of his heart, to chop his head
with an axe and to cas5 his body, yet
convulsing with the agonies of death,
into the water. And this deed you
dared to perpetrate in the very harbor
of Charleston, within a few yards of
the shore, unblushingly, in the face of
open day. Had your murderous arm
been raised against your equals whom
the laws Of seJf-defense and the more
etfacious laws of the land unite to pro-
tect, your crime would not have been
without precedent and would have
seemed less horrid. Your personal
risk would at least have proved that
though murderer you were not a
coward. But you too we'll knew that
this unfortunate man, whom chance
had subjected to your caprices, had
not, like yourself, chartered to him by
the laws of the land the same rights of
nature; and that stern but necessary
policy had disarrned him of the rights
of self-defense. Too well you knew
that to you alone he could look for
protection, and that your arm alone
could shield him from oppression or
avenge his wrongs; yet that arm you
cruelty stretched out for his destruc-
ton.
From the peculiar situation of this
country our fathers felt themselves
justified in subjecting to very slight
punishment him who murders slave.
Whether the present state of society
requires continuation of this policy,
so opposite to the apparent rights of
humanity, it remains for subsequent
legislature to decide. Their attention
would ere this have been directed to
this subject but for the honor of hu-
man nature, such hardened sinners as
yourself are rarely found to disturb
the repose of society"
It was this same Judge WildS who.
to disaouse the public mind Of the
opinion that husband may chastise
his wife provided the weapon be not
thicker than his little finger, pro-
claimed the law of South Carolina on
this subject in the following graceful
extract from The Honeymoon"
1.-The man that lays his hand upon
woman,
Save in the way of kindness is a wretch,
Whom It were gross fattery to name
coward. YATES SNOWDEN.