By the common law, the marriage of a slave was sacred
as that of a peer of the realm. The customs of Turkey
regard it as inviolable. Even the Roman code respected
that, and the common law, by making marriage a sacrament, rendered it perpetual. "Neither bond nor free may
be separated from the sacraments of the Church," said the Decretal of Gregory; "the marriages among slaves must not be hindered, and though contracted against their master's will, ought not, on that account, to be dissolved." But in the American law the slave cannot contract marriage. In North Carolina no marriage is legal between whites and persons of colour, including in the latter term all descended from a negro to the fourth generation.
In some States it is a penal offence to teach slaves the elements of common learning. By the recent code of Virginia, any one who undertakes to teach reading or writing to slaves, or even free coloured persons, may be fined from $10 to $100. The same is forbidden in Georgia. In Alabama, the punishment is a fine from $250 to $500; in Mississippi imprisonment for one year. Louisiana forbids the teaching of slaves to read or write, and prohibits any one from using language in public discourse or private conversation, having a tendency to produce discontent among the free coloured population. The latter offence is punishable "with imprisonment or death, at the discretion of the court." This antipathy to the education of the coloured race extends even to the free States. It is not unknown in New England. The State of Ohio established schools in 1829 for "the white youth of every class and grade without distinction."
According to the alleged precept of Mahomet, slaves are supposed to be bound by feebler social and civil obligations than freemen, and thus common offences receive but half the punishment of the free. Such, it is said, is the common law of Mahometans in Turkey and the East. In Virginia there are six capital offences for a freeman, seventy-one for a slave. In Mississippi there are thirty-eight offences for which a slave must be punished with death,—not one of which is a capital crime in a free white man. In some States the law is milder, but in none does the Christian Republican of Anglo-Saxon descent imitate
