State v. Baltimore & Susquehanna Steam Co.

Tuck, J., delivered the opinion of this court. This is an action of debt to recover the penalty imposed by the first section of the act of 1838, ch. 375, “To prevent the transportation of people of color upon railroads or in steamboats.” The questions for consideration relate to the construction of the act of Assembly, and to the ownership of the steamboat at the time the negro in question escaped. At the trial below the State offered a prayer affirming its right to recover, on the facts given in evidence; and the defendant offered four, but the court rejected all the prayers, and gave an instruction to the jury, to which, as well as to the refusal of its own prayer, the State excepted. As to the position on the part of the appellee, that the company, or its agents, had no knowledge that the negro was on board, and had no intention to violate the law, we think that the liability may be enforced without reference to such circumstances.

The act must be interpreted by the language employed, which cannot be construed so as to aid that defence, without ascribing to the Legislature an intention not apparent from the letter. The transportation of slaves, without written permission, was the act against which this legislation was directed. The reasons for passing the law are set out in the preamble. If the Legislature deemed it expedient, in view of the grievance complained of, to hold persons responsible for transporting negroes, whether they were instigated by a criminal intent or not, they had the power to do so.

Such acts may produce mischief in individual cases, but the inconvenience and injury would be much more general if, in every case of this kind, the party charged could defend himself by offering evidence that he did not know the negro was on board of the boat, and that reasonable diligence had been used to prevent such persons from coining on board. The law would scarcely afford any protection to slave-owners. There is no hardship in this view of the case, if we consider the condition of the parties. A master cannot always keep his servants at ¹⁸⁸ home, he allows them reasonable indulgence in this respect but the captain of a boat or the conductor of a railroad car can keep them out of the boats and cars.

If one or the other must suffer, ought not fhe loss to fall on him who could most conveniently have prevented it? 4 Metcalf, 49. Pettigrew vs. Barnum, 11 Md. Rep., 447 . A negro is presumed to be a slave, and if persons in charge of these conveyances will prevent them from entering, unless they show themselves to be free, or have written permissions, the risk would be avoided. We suppose, that if the Legislature had designed that the liability should depend on the want of care and diligence on the part of the owners of the boat, proper words would have been employed.

It is true, that statutes are not always to fre interpreted by their letter. Sometimes cases not within the words are held to be within the act; and other cases are, by construction, taken without the operation of the law, though povered by the language, according to the intent and design of the Legislature, to be collected from the whole act, with reference, also, to the mischief, or cause of making the law. Scaggs vs. Rail Road Co., 10 Md. Rep., 268 . The Legislature intended “to prevent the transportation of people of color upon railroads or in steamboats,” as shown by the title pf the act, because, as recited in the preamble, it had been represented to the Assembly, that the owners of slaves had suffered great loss by the facilities of escape afforded to slaves, by means of railroads and steamboats; and “for remedy of said evil,” the act was passed.

Now, if the Legislature used words, which, by their plain meaning, are adequate to the end proposed, would it not be going in the face of the law, to give them a different construction, by allowing fhe party charged to excuse himself, in the manner proposed in this case, when the law, in terms, declares, that the transportation of slaves, without permission in writing, shall be unlawful under the