A slave, prized by his owner for intelligence, seized an axe and killed the overseer who was beating him. Prosecutor Henry Clay, the Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams, argued that a free man could have pleaded self defense but since the defendant was a slave, the act was murder. Clay secured a conviction and the slave was hanged. The Negro’s conduct at the trial however so impressed Clay that he resigned as prosecutor and ‘never failed to express his sorrow at the part he had played in this case.’
The Constitution of the United States made law and order the responsibility of individual states and most states adopted the Protestant slavery code to deal with the slaves. There were two sets of laws and courts: one for whites and another for blacks; Mulattos were defined as blacks. For blacks the slaveholders were the law and, indeed, God. The black man’s color was proof of his guilt. For whites the law was ‘presumed innocent unless found guilty,’ for blacks the law was ‘presumed guilty unless found innocent.’