NamSouth

[btownsend]

(The "portrait" is of my great, great Grandfather BF Moore. There are two, one at the Supreme Court in Raleigh and the other at UNC Chapel Hill's Planetarium. A professional photographer from Raleigh went to the latter, took the portrait down and with lights took a roll of 24 with a high end camera. We picked the best of the lot which she put on canvas and once I framed and hung it, you could not tell the difference when you walk into the room. His eyes still follow you. BT)

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(Biographical History of North Carolina from Colonial Times to the Present, By Samuel A'Court Ashe.)

The most noted case, that of the State against Will, of a slave, and the greatest in the entire State was tried in Edgecombe County before Judge Donnell in the last Circuit Court, January 22, 1834. It was a case that awakened a general and profound interest throughout the country, and settled the true relation between master and slave in the State. It recognized the right of the slave to defend himself against the assaults of his master in the preservation of his own life a thing never asserted by slaves heretofore in the county.

A slave, Will, was indicted for the murder of Richard Baxter. Will belonged to James S. Battle, and the deceased, Richard Baxter, was the overseer of Battle, and was entrusted with the management of the slave at the time of the homicide. Early in the morning of the 22d day of January, the day the killing took place, Will had a dispute with another slave, Allen, who was also a slave of Mr. Battle, and a foreman on the same plantation of which the deceased was an overseer. A dispute arose between Will and Allen about a hoe which Will claimed as his own because of having helved it in his own time, but Allen directed another slave to use it on that day.

Some angry words passed between Will and the foreman, and Will broke out the helve, and walked off about one-fourth of a mile to a cotton field and began picking cotton. Soon after the dispute they informed Mr. Baxter, the overseer, of the occurrence. He immediately went into the house, and while he was in there his wife was heard to say, I would not, my dear; to which he was said to have replied in a positive tone of voice, I will. In a very short time after this Mr. Baxter came out of his house to the place where the foreman was and told him that he was going after Will, and instructed the foreman to take his cowhide and follow him at a distance. Mr. Baxter then returned to the house, took his gun, saddled his horse, and rode to the screw,1 a distance of about six hundred yards, where Will was at work.

The overseer came up within 20 or 25 feet of the screw without being observed by the slave, dismounted, and hastily got over the fence into the screwyard. He walked directly to the cotton screw, gun in hand, where the slave was standing, engaged in throwing cotton, and ordered him to come down. The slave took off his hat in an humble manner and came down. Mr. Baxter spoke some words to Will, which were not heard by any of the three negroes present. The slave immediately began to run. He proceeded about fifteen steps when the overseer fired upon the slave, sending the whole load in the negro's back.

The wound caused by the shot was sufficient to have produced death, but the slave continued to make off through a field, and after retreating about 150 yards in sight of the overseer, was pursued

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by two slaves directed by Mr. Baxter, who said, He could not go far. The overseer himself, laying down his gun, mounted his horse, and having directed his foreman, who had just come up, to pursue the prisoner also, rode around the field and headed off the wounded slave. Mr. Baxter soon dismounted and pursued the negro on foot, and as soon as the slave discovered he was blocked, he changed his course to avoid the overseer, and ran in another direction towards the woods. The overseer, however, soon overtook him and collared him with his right hand. In the meantime the negroes ordered to pursue the slave came toward the slave and the overseer.

They were ordered by Mr. Baxter to seize the wounded slave. One of them attempted to lay hold of the negro, who had his knife drawn, and the left thumb of the overseer in his mouth. When he came up, Will struck at the slave with his knife, but missed him and cut the overseer on the thigh. In the scuffle which followed between Will and Mr. Baxter, the overseer received a wound in the arm which occasioned his death.

Soon after the overseer let go his hold on Will, who ran towards the nearest woods and escaped. Mr. Baxter did not pursue the slave, but he ordered the negroes to do so, but soon recalled them. When they returned, Mr. Baxter was sitting on the ground bleeding, and as they came up the overseer said, Will has killed me; if I had minded what my poor wife said, I would not have been in this fix.

In addition to the wound on his thigh, Mr. Baxter had a slight puncture in his chest about skin deep, and a wound about 4 inches long and 2 inches deep on his right arm above his elbow. The loss of blood occasioned the overseer's death, and he died in the evening of the same day. In the meantime, the slave went to his master and surrendered himself, and the following day was arrested. When the negro was informed of the death of the overseer, he exclaimed, Is it possible? and appeared to be much affected by the report.

The case was immediately called by the court. The jury hesitated to prove Will guilty of felony and murder on the indictment specified and charged against him by the court. The jurors were altogether ignorant of the law, since there was no precedent in the case. They requested the advice of the court upon the

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matter. In the meantime, Judge Darnell claimed the slave was guilty of feloniously killing and slaying Mr. Baxter, and promised the sentence of death from the special verdict which had been made by the jury. The slave appealed to the Supreme Court. B. F. Moore, a reputable lawyer {Later known as the "Father Of The NC Bar} interceded for Will and defended his case in the Supreme Court. It was conceded that Baxter occupied the place of master, and, in his capacity of overseer, was invested with all the authority of owner, in the means of rendering the prisoner subservient to his lawful commands. With this concession freely made, it was believed that if the shot of Mr. Baxter had proved fatal, he would have been guilty of murder, and not of manslaughter. The instrument used and the short distance between the parties were sufficient to produce death, and nothing but the want of malice could have deprived the act of any features of murder.

It was then proved that Baxter had loaded his gun and proceeded to the cotton screw with the intent to shoot the slave if the latter should run. It was clear then that if Baxter's shot had been fatal, he would have been guilty of murder and not of manslaughter. This was manifest from the evidence of his whole conduct, and particularly so from the fact of his directing the foreman to walk behind at a distance. If he had armed himself for defense, expecting a conflict with the prisoner, he would have summoned aid and kept men at his command ready for encounter. It became evident to the defendant's mind that the purpose of the shooting had actually been formed and time had been given him for reflection. The argument by Mr. Moore on behalf of Will was therefore as follows: First, that if Baxter's shot had killed the prisoner, Baxter would have been guilty of manslaughter at the least. Second, this position being established, the killing of Baxter under the circumstances related was manslaughter on the part of the prisoner.

The public mind was rapidly perverted by the opinion that any means might be resorted to in order to coerce the perfect submission of the slave to his master's will, and that any resistance to that will, reasonable or unreasonable, lawfully places the life of a slave at his master's feet. Mr. Moore attempted to draw the line, if there was any, before the jury, of the lawful and unlawful exercises of the master's power in Edgecombe County.

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The decision in the case of State v. Mann was used as a precedent. This case left the slave where his life was spared, under the slender guardianship of the frowns and execrations of a moral community against cruelty. Judge Henderson had formerly fixed the true boundary of the master's power. It extends, he says, to securing the service and labors of the slave, and no farther. He furthermore declared that a power over the life of the slave was not surrendered by the law, because the possession of such a power is always necessary to the purposes of slavery, and that his life was in care of the law. The previous laws, similar to those which subsisted in older slave countries, which declared the relation of master and slave, and had been practiced in the county since its formation, was no longer believed to be intended to cover the entire relation between master and slave. On the contrary, the idea of perfect submission of the slave was in accordance with the policy which should regulate condition of life, whenever it existed.

It is safe to say that Mr. Moore did not, however, argue so much from the point of law ”which if it had been interpreted literally, would have been decidedly against him ”as he did the irresistible force of public opinion. That force was that time setting in a countercurrent against the use of absolute power. It must be depreciated and stopped or absolute power would be clearly proved necessary to the ends of slavery. The courts of the country began to receive the light and to foster the enlightened benevolence of the age, by interpreting the powers that one class of people claimed over another, in conformity, not with the spirit that tolerated the barbarian who was guilty of savage cruelty, but with that which heaped upon him the frowns and depreciations of the community. When one views the proceedings of the early courts and the sentences of the people, one cannot but help admitting that while the courts were landing the Christian benevolence of the times, manifested by the humane treatment of the slaves, they were engaged in investigating to what possible extent the master might push his authority without incurring civil responsibility.

From this viewpoint Mr. Moore made his plea one of a moral nature. I am, he said, arguing no question of abstract right, but I am endeavoring to prove that the natural incidents of

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slavery must be borne with because they are inherent to the condition itself; and that any attempt to restrain or punish a slave for the exercise of a right, which even absolute power cannot destroy, is inhuman and without the slightest benefit to the security of the master or to that of society at large.

“If, continued Mr. Moore, the deceased had been resisted, a great degree of force might have been used, and the law would not have been scrupulous in determining the excess. If he had been chastising the prisoner in the ordinary mode and death had ensued, it would have been nothing more than an unfortunate accident. But the prisoner was neither resisting the master nor did the calamity grow out of an attempt to chastise. It is confidently contended that a master has not by law of the land the right to kill his slave for a simple act of disobedience, however provoking may be the circumstances under which it is committed; that if a slave be required to stand and he run off, he has not forfeited his life. This is conclusive, if the law will never justify a homicide except it be committed upon unavoidable necessity, and will excuse no one, except it be done by misadventure or so defendendo . There is no principle of criminal law which will justify or excuse the death that has been caused through the provocation of the passion alone.

Moreover, it was shown by Mr. Moore that the prisoner was shot in the act of making off from his overseer, who was prepared to chastise him. A master's authority to apprehend the slave was conceded by the court not to be greater than that of a constable or a sheriff to arrest for misdemeanor; and a constable could not kill in order to prevent an escape of one guilty of that kind of offense. The law had such a high regard for human life that it instructed the officers to permit an escape rather than kill. If the officer acted illegally, by abusing his authority or exceeding it, resistance unto death was not murder. Consequently, if the master had greater authority to apprehend his slave than a law officer had to arrest under a precept for a misdemeanor, he surely did not have a greater authority than a sheriff, acting under a precept, had to arrest a felon. Here the law again shows its deep regard for human life and its detestations to kill a felon, a murderer, or traitor unless his escape be inevitable. And in every instance in which one man can be justified in killing

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another, the abuse of his power makes him guilty of manslaughter. An officer, therefore, having the right to kill a felon in order to prevent his escape, and having done so when the escape might have been prevented by more lenient means, was guilty of manslaughter. This necessity remained to be proved by Mr. Moore, for it was never to be presumed. No such necessity appeared in the finding of the jury. In legal contemplation, therefore, it did not exist.

The prisoner was thus looked upon as in the act of disobedience and not resistance, between which there was a vast difference. The deceased then must have exceeded his authority according to the evidence and the defendant was guilty of manslaughter only. The slave simply slew his overseer, after having been dangerously shot, pursued and overtaken. The tamest and most domestic brute would doubtless have done likewise. Was the victim now to be a sacrifice offered to the policy which regulated the relation of slavery among our fathers? May we say that the momentum of feeling, acting through the juries of the county and the spirit of the legislature at Raleigh, that the interests of society were at stake and demanded a permanent settlement of the extent of a master's authority?

By a timely and judicious administration of the law, in relation to this subject, the courts did much to formulate a sound public opinion. They used the opportunity afforded by their situation in a most happy manner. The condition of the slave was rapidly advancing under the new kind of enlightenment and inspiring civilization. The negro and the white were now, by the decision returned in Will's case, placed under the very same law. Will was declared guilty of manslaughter.