The Court said
of the quilting party: "The occasion was a perfectly innocent one, even
meritorious.... It would simply seem ridiculous to suppose that the safety
of the state or any of its inhabitants was implicated in such an assemblage
as this." And of the patrol's limitations: "A judicious freedom in the
administration of our police laws for the lower order must always have
respect for the confidence which the law reposes in the discretion of the
master."[21]
[Footnote 17: _E. g_., Letter of "a citizen" in the Charleston _City
Gazette_, Aug. 17, 1825.]
[Footnote 18: _E. g., L'Abeille_ (New Orleans), Aug. 15, 1841, editorial.]
[Footnote 19: Letter signed "R.T.," Port Tobacco, Md., Aug. 19, 1787. MS.
in the Library of Congress.]
[Footnote 20: The State _v_. Hale, in Hawks, _North Carolina Reports_, V,
582. See similarly Munford, _Virginia Reports_, I, 288.]
[Footnote 21: The State _v_. Boozer _et al_., in Strobhart, _South Carolina
Law Reports_, V, 21. This is quoted at some length in H.M. Henry, _Police
Control of the Slave in South Carolina_, pp. 146-148.]
The masters were on their private score, however, prone to disregard the
law where it restrained their own prerogatives.
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