Death By Whiskey

Jefferson said that “laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.” The death, by whiskey, of a Missouri slave gave the Supreme Court of that state occasion to show how little the minds of its Justices had progressed by 1850.

Skinner et al vs. Hughes, penned by the Honorable William B. Napton, discussed the liability of a person selling intoxicating liquors to a slave without permission from his “master, owner, or overseer” and the principal-agency relationship between a sales clerk and store owner. Liability, as the Court discussed, was based not on remote and consequential damages resulting from an act, but those which are its natural and proximate consequences.

It is surprising to read of death as the natural consequence of the sale of a bottle of whiskey. It is unsurprising – but no less horrific – to read the following:

“The sale of whisky to the negro was unlawful, but that does not constitute the source of responsibility. The defendants might have sold the negro a rope, with which he immediately went out and hanged himself. The distinction between such a sale and a sale of intoxicating liquors is obvious. The former, though a breach of law, was not likely to be attended with injurious consequences, without a concurrence of circumstances and co-operation of acts on the part of the slave, not to be expected in the usual course of events. The latter is like placing noxious food within the reach of domestic animals.”