aining the indictment of a private citizen for such offense the
chief-justice of North Carolina said in 1823: "For all purposes necessary
to enforce the obedience of the slave and render him useful as property the
law secures to the master a complete authority over him, and it will
not lightly interfere with the relation thus established. It is a more
effectual guarantee of his right of property when the slave is protected
from wanton abuse by those who have no power over him, for it cannot be
disputed that a slave is rendered less capable of performing his master's
service when he finds himself exposed by law to the capricious violence
of every turbulent man in the community. Mitigated as slavery is by the
humanity of our laws, the refinement of manners, and by public opinion
which revolts at every instance of cruelty towards them, it would be an
anomaly in the system of police which affects them if the offense stated in
the verdict [the striking of a slave] were not indictable."[20] Likewise
the South Carolina Court of Appeals in 1850 endorsed the fining of a public
patrol which had whipped the slaves at a quilting party despite their
possession of written permission from their several masters. The Court said
of the quilting party: "The occasion was a perfectly innocent one, even
meritorious.... It would simply seem ridiculous to suppose that the safety
of the state or any of its inhabitants was implicated in such an assemblage
as this." And of the patrol's limitations: "A judicious freedom in the
administration of our police laws for the lower order must always have
respect for the confidence which the law reposes in the discretion of the
master."[21]

[Footnote 17: _E. g_., Letter of "a citizen" in the Charleston _City
Gazette_, Aug. 17, 1825.]

[Footnote 18: _E. g., L'Abeille_ (New Orleans), Aug. 15, 1841, editorial.]

[Footnote 19: Letter signed "R.T.," Port Tobacco, Md., Aug. 19, 1787. MS.
in the Library of Congress.]

[Footnote 20: The State _v_. Hale, in Hawks, _North Carolina Reports_, V,
582. See similarly Munford, _Virginia Reports_, I, 288.]

[Footnote 21: The State _v_. Boozer _et al_., in Strobhart, _South Carolina
Law Reports_, V, 21. This is quoted at some length in H.M. Henry, _Police
Control of the Slave in South Carolina_, pp. 146-148.]

The masters were on their private score, however, prone to disregard the
law where it restrained their own prerogatives. They hired slaves to the
slaves themsel