mere chattels but are regarded in the two-fold
character of persons and property; that as persons they are considered by
our law as accountable moral agents; ... that certain rights have been
conferred upon them by positive law and judicial determination, and other
privileges and indulgences have been conceded to them by the universal
consent of their owners. By uniform and universal usage they are
constituted the agents of their owners and sent on business without written
authority. And in like manner they are sent to perform those neighborly
good offices common in every community.... The simple truth is, such
indulgences have been so long and so uniformly tolerated, the public
sentiment upon the subject has acquired almost the force of positive law."
The judgment of the lower court was accordingly reversed and Jones was
relieved of liability for his laxness.[28]

[Footnote 28: Head's _Tennessee Reports_, I, 627-639.]

There were sharp limits, nevertheless, to the lenity of the courts. Thus
when one Brazeale of Mississippi carried with him to Ohio and there set
free a slave woman of his and a son whom he had begotten of her, and then
after taking them home again died bequeathing all his property to the
mulatto boy, the supreme court of the state, in 1838, declared the
manumission void under the laws and awarded the mother and son along with
all the rest of Brazeale's estate to his legitimate heirs who had brought
the suit.[29] In so deciding the court may have been moved by its
repugnance toward concubinage as well as by its respect for the statutes.

[Footnote 29: Howard's _Mississippi Reports_, II, 837-844.]

The killing or injury of a slave except under circumstances justified by
law rendered the offender liable both to the master's claim for damages
and to criminal prosecution; and the master's suit might be sustained even
where the evidence was weak, for as was said in a Louisiana decision, the
deed was "one rarely committed in presence of witnesses, and the most that
can be expected in cases of this kind are the presumptions that result from
circumstances."[30] The requirement of positive proof from white witnesses
in criminal cases caused many indictments to fail.[31] A realization of
this hindrance in the law deprived convicted offenders of some of the
tolerance which their crimes might otherwise have met. When in 1775, for
example, William Pitman was found guilty and sentenced by the Virginia
General Court t