18 N.C. 471 | N.C. | 1836
But if the words do impute the offence of harbouring a runaway slave, they are still not actionable. They must impute legal infamy — the mere liability to punishment is not sufficient. Brady v. Wilson, 4 Hawks, 93. Liability to the punishment of imprisonment is not of itself sufficient.
Badger, in reply. The case in Hawks has no reference to the present. There the charge itself was not actionable, because there was no averment of the guilt of the offence — like charging one with killing a man simply. But if the words themselves import a criminal offence, the defendant must show that they were not so used. Negro belonging to a man, must mean a slave — it is synonymous with slave. The criterion contended for by the defendant's counsel is not the true one. If the punishment of whipping was taken away from stealing, still it would be actionable to charge a man with stealing. It must therefore be the nature of the offence, and not the punishment, which renders the words actionable. Harbouring a slave partakes of the nature of larceny. In the act of 1816 (Rev. ch. 918,) relative to the punishment of manslaughter, the Court recognised a distinction between crimes infamous or otherwise, and referred the infamous punishment therein directed to the offences of an infamous nature. State v. Kearney, 2 Hawks, 53.
— An act of assembly passed in the year 1821, (Taylor's Rev. ch. 1120,) declares, that if any person shall harbour or maintain any runaway slave, such person shall be subject to indictment for such offence, and being convicted, shall be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, and be imprisoned not exceeding six months. The declaration states, that the defendant said of the plaintiff, that "he harboured a runaway negro belonging to Jonathan Reddick, and he could prove it; and he should be prosecuted for it." The question is, whether the words spoken are slanderous, and in themselves actionable? *473
From the contradictory decisions in England, it is not easy to say what is now the rule to determine what words are actionable of themselves, and what not. In Ogden v. Turner, Salk. 696, Lord HOLT said, to render words actionable, it is not sufficient that the party may be fined and imprisoned for the offence, if true; for, says he, there must not only be imprisonment, but an infamous punishment. This decision, which seemed to establish a fixed rule, was shaken, and materially contradicted, by what fell from De GREY, Chief Justice, in giving judgment in the case of Onslow
v. Horne, 3 Wils. 177. Mr. Starkie, in his Treatise on Slander, p. 41, says, from all the British authorities, perhaps, it may be inferred generally, that, to impute any crime or misdemeanor for which corporal punishment may be inflicted in a temporal Court, is actionable, without proof of special damage. Any objection to the extent of the above rule, he says, is in a great measure obviated by the statute, which enacts, that when the damage does not amount to forty shillings, the costs shall be limited to the amount of the damages. In Chitty's General Prac. 44, the same rule appears to be laid down. He, in classing slanderous words, says, "nor can any action be supported, unless the words either, first, impute the guilt of some temporal offence, for which the party slandered, if guilty, might be indicted and punished in the temporal Courts, and which words are technically said to endanger a man in law" — he then proceeds to give the other classes of slander, which are not applicable to this case. The rule, as to the extent of words actionable in themselves, has never been carried in this country as far as the above respectable commonplace authors state it to be in England. In several of the states, it seems to be, that where the charge, if true, will subject the party to an indictment involving moral turpitude, or subject him to an infamouspunishment, then the words are actionable in themselves, otherwise not.Brooker v. Coffin, 5 John. Rep. 188. Widrig v. Oyer, 13 John. Rep. 124; 2 Bibb, Rep. 473. Shaffer v. Kintzer, 1 Binn. 542. Ross v. McClurg, Ib. 218.Chapman v. Gillett,
PER CURIAM. Judgment affirmed.