State vs. Mann - State Side

In class, we debated the State vs. Mann case, which regards a slave being beat and shot at by the person who is renting her. My group and I were on the State Side of the debate, arguing that Mann should be held accountable for injuring said slave and should be forced to pay his fine. Our argument was structured upon the basis that due to Mann renting Lydia, and her not being his property, he was simply assaulting her.

The State vs. Mann case as a whole dealt with John Mann, from North Carolina, who had rented a slave named Lydia. Lydia was referred to as "disobedient" and in order to handle this, Mann began beating her. In an attempt to avoid the beating, Lydia started running. Mann shot at Lydia while she was running away, and hit her in the back, injuring her. Mann was fined ten dollars, and felt as though he should not be held responsible for paying the fine. The case then worked its way through the system and landed in the Supreme Court.

For my personal argument, I based it on ethics. The issue at hand was, Mann abused and attempted to murder Lydia, and expected to face zero punishment. By allowing Mann to be refunded his ten dollar fine, it disregards Lydia as any sort of human being. Even if we regard Lydia as property, she was not being beaten by her owner, she was being beaten by a renter. If this was spoken about with true property such as a house, the renter would be liable for destruction they commit on the home they are renting. This point alone should have held Mann responsible for the destruction of Lydia's physical body.

Ethically, the ruling was incorrect. Lydia was being harmed by someone who was not even her owner, meaning he had no rights over her. By diminishing Lydia as a person and allowing Mann to not pay his fine, it creates a concept that allows for non-slave owners to potentially have the right to harm slaves that are not theirs. Along with that, the case went against a precedenting case. The preceding case regarded a man who had committed a ruthless crime against his own slave. He was therefore fined and punished by law. Due to the common practice of following precedenting case rulings, the State vs. Mann case should have also held John Mann accountable for the battering and attempted murder of Lydia.

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