Slave codes were laws in each US state, which defined the status of slaves and the rights of masters. These codes gave slave-owners absolute power over the African slaves.
Read more about Slave Codes: Violence and Other Injustices Against Slaves
Famous quotes containing the words slave and/or codes:
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“I cannot help thinking that the menace of Hell makes as many devils as the severe penal codes of inhuman humanity make villains.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)