The subject is one of vast importance, and I trust will engage a liberal share of your consideration. Feeling however, that by the terms of the resolution, it was intended to obtain information from the committee, rather than the Executive, to that source I respectfully commend you.
I felt it my duty to withhold my approval of two acts of the last General Assembly and one resolution which are herewith transmitted to the respective branches of the Legislature in which they originated, with my objections to each.
The law giving jurisdiction to the Inferior Court in the trial of slaves for capital offences, is believed to be defective. The Justices of this Court are usually selected from the citizens of the respective counties without special reference to their legal attainments:—and to impose upon them the responsibility of deciding complicated and vexed questions of law involving human life, is, to my mind, unjust to them as a Court, and not the most reliable mode of attaining the ends of justice by a fair trial in the due course of law. It is therefore respectfully recommended that in the trial of slaves and free persons of color, for all offences declared capital, jurisdiction be given to the Superior Court; and that such modification of existing laws be made, as this change of jurisdiction will require.
In this connection, it may well be considered whether the 12th Section of the 13th Division of the Penal Code, in relation to cruel treatment of slaves by their owners, should not be amended. The, object of the Legislature, by the passage of the section in question, was doubtless to protect the slave from cruel treatment upon the part of the owner or authorzeid agent, and though the instances of the violation of the Statute are rare, yet, it must be conceded that convictions will seldom be had under it, so unguarded is the language employed in defining the offence. In every contest involving the treatment of the master to his slave, the advantage of the former over the latter is apparent, and hence the propriety, if it is intended to carry out this humane policy by imposing penalties on the owner, authorized agent, or stranger, who may be guilty of this offence, to define with accuracy the treatment which shall be regarded as cruel, as well as the evidence which should authorize a conviction.
In the present excited state of the public mind upon the subject of slavery throughout the Union, it is believed to be the duty of the Legislature to review previous legislation upon the subject, and so modify and change the same as to demonstrate to the world, that while we are actuated by a humane and christian policy in protecting this portion of our population by wholesome laws, we will by equally salutary provisions, however rigorous the necessity of the case may
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