"The State senators of Louisiana are elected for four years, one fourth
vacating their seats annually. They must possess an estate of a thousand
dollars in the parish, for which they are chosen. The representatives
have a biennial term, and must possess 500 dollars' worth of property in
the parish to be eligible. The governor is chosen for four years; and is
ineligible for the succeeding term. His duties are the same, as in the
other states, and his salary is 7,000 dollars a year. The judiciary
powers are vested in a supreme and circuit court, together with a
municipal court called the parish court.--The salaries are ample. The
elective franchise belongs to every free white man of twenty-one years,
and upward, who has had a residence of six months in the parish, and who
has paid taxes.
The code of laws, adopted by this state, is not what is called the
"common law," which is the rule of judicial proceedings in all the other
states, but the _civil law_, adopted, with some modifications, from the
judicial canons of France and Spain. So much of the common law is
interwoven with it, as has been adopted by express deep stain upon the
moral character to be generally reputed a cruel master. In many
plantations no punishment is inflicted except after a trial by a jury,
composed of the fellow-servants of the party accused. Festivals, prizes,
and rewards are instituted, as stimulants to exertion, and compensations
for superior accomplishment of labour. They are generally well fed and
clothed, and that not by an arbitrary award, which might vary with the
feelings of the master; but by periodical apportionment, like the
distributed rations of soldiers, of what has been ascertained to be
amply sufficient to render them comfortable.
Nor are they destitute, as has been supposed, of any legal protection,
coming between them and the possible cupidity and cruelty of the
masters. The '_code noir_' of Louisiana is a curious collection of
statutes, drawn partly from French and Spanish law and usage, and partly
from the customs of the islands, and usages, which have grown out of the
peculiar circumstances of Louisiana while a colony. It has the aspect,
it must be admitted, of being formed rather for the advantage of the
master, than for the servant, for it prescribes an unlimited homage and
obedience to the latter. But at the same time, it defines crimes, which
the master can commit in relation to the slave, and prescribes the mode
of trial, and the kind and degree of punishment. It constitutes
unnecessary correction, maiming, and murder, punishable offences in a
master. It is very minute in prescribing the number of hours, which the
master may lawfully exact to be employed in labour, and the number of
hours, which he must allow his slave for meal-time and for rest. It
prescribes the time and extent of his holidays. In short, it settles
with minuteness and detail the whole circle of relations between master
and slave, defining, and prescribing what the former may, and may not
exact from the latter.
That the slave is, also, in the general circumstances of his condition,
as happy as this relation will admit of his being, is an unquestionable
fact. That he seldom performs as much labour, or performs it as well as
a free man, says all upon the subject of the motives which freedom only
can supply, that can be alleged. In all the better managed plantations,
the mode of building the quarters is fixed. The arrangement of the
little village has a fashion by which it is settled. Interest, if not
humanity, has defined the amount of food and rest, necessary for their
health; and there is, in a large and respectable plantation, as much
precision in the rules, as much exactness in the times of going to
sleep, awaking, going to labour, and resting before and after meals, as
in a garrison under military discipline, or in a ship of war. A bell
gives all the signals; every slave, at the assigned hour in the morning,
is forthcoming to his labour, or his case is reported, either as one of
idleness, obstinacy, or sickness, in which case he is sent to the
hospital, and there is attended by a physician, who, for the most part,
has a yearly salary for attending to all the sick of the plantation. The
union of physical force, directed by one will, is now well understood to
have a much greater effect upon the amount of labour, which a number of
hands, so managed, can bring about, than the same force directed by as
many wills as there are hands. Hence it happens that while one free man,
circumstances being the same, will perform more labour than one slave, a
hundred slaves will accomplish more on one plantation, than so many
hired free men, acting at their own discretion. Hence, too, it is, that
such a prodigious quantity of cotton and sugar is made here, in
proportion to the number of labouring hands. All the processes of
agriculture are managed by system. Everything goes straight forward.
There is no pulling down to-day the scheme of yesterday, and the whole
amount of force is directed by the teaching of experience to the best
result. _Flint's Miss. Val. Art. Louisiana_, vol. i. p. 527.