State vs Mann

John Mann the slave owner was initially being finned five dollars for having shot and wounded his slave. However, he had argued that It is legal because slaves are to be treated like property. The slave was is property it would give him the right to injury or kill. He did this because he did not have full control off the slave. However, the court was biased and did agree with him primarly due to the ffact that most of the judges did support slavery

Ruffin reasoned that a slave is "one doomed in his own person, and his posterity, to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to make anything his own, and to toil that another may reap the fruits." A slave would accept such a fate only if his master wielded "uncontrolled authority over [the slave's] body." If this authority were subjected to judicial scrutiny, it would naturally be diminished and the relationship between master and slave destroyed.

State vs mann is a decision in which the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled that slave owners had absolute authority over their slaves and could not be found guilty of committing violence against them.