Rule by law, not by man

I don't have time for this, but I just want to mention one thing in regard to the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin thing.

Those people who are requesting calm acceptance of the verdict, or peaceful protests for those who must protest, call upon the phrase, "Rule by law, not by man." But what the hell does that mean?

You don't have to look too far to find examples of "rule by man" in the United States. Prime example:

When slavery was legal in the United States, it was based on the notion that slaves weren't quite human, therefore, they didn't have any rights under the law. They couldn't vote, sit on juries, or otherwise partake of the citizen experience. They weren't protected by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights any more than the family dog would have been protected.

So what happened when slaves committed crimes -- or were even accused of committing crimes? I mean, they weren't fully human under the law, had no rights, so the usual constitutional procedures didn't apply to them.

In some cases - really capitol cases, involving serious felonies like murder -- the slaves may or may not be tried, but certainly they were executed. Here's a good case, of Denmark Vesey, a free black man who had a cabinetry business in Charleston, South Carolina, in the late 1700s -- but after the USA had won its independence. He was a free man, had never been a slave as far as I can tell. But he befriended many of the black slaves in the area and eventually planned a slave rebellion. He had gone so far as to recruit a real "army" of slaves from local plantations, and had apparently stored up some number of weapons they could use for the rebellion.

Alas, the night before the attack was to begin, one slave in Vesey's army went wimp and confessed all to his master. The arms, such as they were, and if they did really exist, were discovered. Other slaves who had agreed to take part in the rebellions were either fingered or confessed. So what was the outcome?

Vesey was tried -- he was a free black man, not a slave. He was found guilty and hanged with three or four slaves who had been fingered or confessed to being key leaders in implementing the scheme.

All the other slaves -- and there were hundreds of them -- were given over to their masters, for the masters to figure out what to do with them. To punish them or not, and how to punish them.

Vesey's outcome was "rule by law." He was a free man, after all, though it's pretty doubtful that, at the time, and he being a black man, he was regarded as deserving of all the rights of a white man. He was found guilty of inciting an insurrection and hanged. The outcome here was similar to what a few white people also suffered for "inciting an insurrection" in the slave South. Many Quakers among them, who tried passing out anti-slavery leaflets and even smuggled slaves out of the South. As a matter of fact, years later, South Carolina accused Abraham Lincoln and the Republican party of "inciting an insurrection." But that was the law in South Carolina.

By contrast, "rule by man" is what happened to all the other slaves who had been identified as taking part in the plan to rise up, and who had been returned to their masters. Their masters decided what to do with them. I've never seen any documentation that records what happened to them. The whole thing was regarded as their masters' private business and nobody else's -- though slave owners were fully expected to keep their slaves under control -- very seriously. A few cases exist where white slaves owners suffered some pretty dire consequences from their neighbors if they were too kind to their slaves.

So what were the usual punishments for disobedient and/or "uppity," and/or "criminal," and/or runaway, and/or simply "lazy" slaves? They were subject to a pretty wide variety of punishments, limited only by their master's imagination and willingness to inflict pain (though usually the master himself did not deliver the punishment. Often he got other slaves to do it.) Whippings were pretty common. A few old barns on old plantations in the slave South had "whipping posts," a convenient and customary place to tie up the slave for whipping. Cutting off fingers, ears, hobbling with irons, stockading -- all possibilities that have been used at one or another time or place.

In one horrendous case, recorded among the accounts in the 1930s WPA Writers' Project, a former slave told the story of the overseer on a plantation raping the wife of a slave. When the husband objected to his wife's rape, the overseer nailed the man's ear to a board first, and then cut it off.

A French woman, Martineau, attributed with establishing the study of sociology, toured the USA in the 1850s. While in the South, noted the social attitudes toward slaves and slavery. Interesting reading. One case she mentioned involved a slave who was apparently a notorious thief and rabble-rouser, being burned alive on the main street of one southern town. Martineau didn't state whether this was common or uncommon, but infers that it was a standard punishment used for certain types of behavior -- and apparently in cases where the slave was expendable. And burning alive seems to have been something the KKK also practiced, along with lynching.

All of this is entirely "rule by man." No interference from the legal system at all for the treatment of slaves.

There were few rules that defined unacceptable slave behavior. It was one of those "you know it when you see it," kind of things. Entirely up to the slave owners and his neighbors. Same for the punishments. The master decided. It was all up to him.

So when people take to the streets and riot, protesting the results of a fair trial -- a verdict that they feel is all wrong.... Well, would you prefer "rule by man?" Think about it.

Justice relies on facts. It isn't always a balm to console your emotions. Life doesn't always happen the way we want it to. Individuals are rarely as "good" as we wish they were, or as "bad" as we believe they might be. Justice can only be determined by the facts in evidence.

Grow up.