sonable means to teach the child to read, or, in default, the child would be released from servitude after the age of twenty-one.

These provisions were all incorporated into the act of the 9th of April, 1813, which contained a digest of the existing laws on the subject of slavery. Under the operation of those provisions, slavery very rapidly diminished, and appearances indicated, that in the course of the present generation, it would be totally extinguished. Those that were slaves on the 4th of July, 1799, and not manumitted, were the only persons that were slaves for life, except those that were imported prior to the 1st of May, 1810, and remained with their former owners unsold. No slave imported since the 1st of June, 1785, could be sold; and no slave imported since the 1st of May, 1810, could be held as a slave; and no person born within the state since the 4th of July, 1799, was born a slave. At last, by the act of 31st of March, 1817,a which digested anew all the former laws on the subject, provision was made for the complete annihilation of slavery in about ten years thereafter, by the section which declared "that every negro, mulatto, or mustee, within the state, born before the 4th of July, 1799, should, from and after the 4th day of July, 1827, be free." After the arrival of that period, domestic slavery became extinguished in the state, and unknown to the law, except in the case of slaves brought within the state by persons as travellers, and who do not reside or continue therein more than nine months. In the language of the New

Laws of New-York, sess. 40, ch. 137.

b Act supra, sec. 15, and Act. sess. 42, ch. 141, sec. 3. N. Y. R. S. vol. i. 657. This latter provision does not appear in the edition of the new R. S. of N. Y. in 1846. This exception in favor of the master voluntarily bringing his slave into the state temporarily as a traveller, prevails also by statute in Rhode-Island, New-Jersey, Illinois and Pennsylvania; and it is an act of comity on the part of the state, and was not required by the constitution of the United States, (art. 4, sec. 2, note 3,) nor by the act of congress of Feb. 12, 1793, ch. 7, made in pursuance

York Revised Statutes,a "every person born within the state is free; every person hereafter born within the state shall be free; and every person brought into the state as

thereof, for they only apply to persons escaping, or being fugitives from service or labour. The Law of Illinois enforces the comity due to travellers in passing over the state by protecting his property and especially his slave whom he brings with him for his temporary use, and the slave does not thereby constitutionally become free, and the law makes it penal to harbor or conceal a slave so temporarily brought into the state for his master's service. They consider the protection of the property in such cases to be required by a liberal international comity. Willard v. The People, 4 Scammon, 461. Again in Eells v. The People, 4 Scammon, 498, the state laws providing for punishing persons who secrete or harbor slaves who are in the state by the consent and in the service of the master as a traveller, is vindicated as constitutional under the constitution of the United States and of the State. The constitutions of the state of Georgia of 1798 and of Florida of 1839, for the better protection of the slave property in that state denies to the legislature the power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners, or to prevent emigrants to that state from bringing with them such persous as are slaves by the laws of any of the United States. On the other hand the constitution of the latter state confers upon the legislature the power to pass laws to prevent free persons of colour from emigrating to that state, or from being discharged from any vessel in any of the ports of Florida.

The legislature of New-York has gone as far as it was doubtless deemed competent for them to do, to protect "free citizens or inhabitants of the state" from being imprisoned or reduced to slavery in any other state. It makes it the duty of the governor if any such person be kidnapped or transported out of the state to be held in slavery, or be wrongfully imprisoned or held in slavery" by color of any usage or rule of law prevailing in such state" to procure his liberty and to employ an agent for that purpose to take the legal measures to effect his restoration. 1 N. Y. R. S. 3d edit. 172.

In Massachusetts, where no such state statute exists, it was held, in August, 1836, in the case of the slave child Med, before the supreme court, that if a slave be voluntarily brought into Massachusetts by his master, or comes there with his consent, the slave becomes free, and cannot be coerced to return. The court on habeas corpus, discharged the child from the custody of its mistress. See also to the same point the case of Commonwealth v. Avis, 18 Pickering, 193. Commonwealth v. Taylor, 3 Metcalf's Rep. 72. On the other hand, it was held, in the case of Johnson v. Tompkins, 1 Baldwin's C. C. U. S. 571, that the master from another state may pursue and take his fugitive slave without warrant. He may arrest him any where and at any time, and no person has a right to oppose the master in the act, or to demand proof of property. The constitution and laws of the United States secure this right to reclaim fugitive a Vol. i. p. 659, sec. 16.

a slave (with the exception in favour of travellers) *shall be free." But though slavery be practically abolished in New-York, the amended constitution of 1821, art. 2, placed people of colour, who were the former victims of the slave laws, under permanent disabilities as electors, by requiring a special qualification as to property, peculiar to their case, to entitle them to vote.b

held, that if a slave from such a state goes lawfully into a non-slave-holding state, and acquires a domicil there with his master, or is emancipated there by his master, he becomes emancipated and ceases to be a slave on his return. But if he be carried there by his master for a temporary purslaves against state legislation. In some of the slave-holding states, it is pose and returns, his state of slavery is resumed. Lunsford v. Coquillon, 14 Martin's Lou. Rep. 405. 2 Marshall's Ken. Rep. 467. Graham v. Strader, 5 B. Monroe, 173. Blackmore v. Phill, 7 Yerger, 452. See also the case of the slave, Grace, in 2 Hagg. Adm. Rep. 94. In the case of Marie Louise v. Marot, 9 Lou. Rep. 473, and of Smith v. Smith, 13 Lou. Rep. 441, the doctrine of emancipation would seem to be carried further than in the above cases, for where a slave was carried by the owner to France, where slavery was not tolerated, and under the operation of whose laws the slave became immediately free, and was brought back to Louisiana, it was held that the slave being free for one moment in France, could not be reduced again to slavery in Louisiana. Thomas v. Geneies, 16 Lou. Rep. 483. S. P. In Connecticut, a similar decision to that in Massachusetts, was made by its supreme court in June, 1837. It was the case of a female slave, brought by her master from Georgia for a temporary residence, and the court held, that the master, having left the slave in Connecticut on a temporary absence from the state, she became forthwith free. Jackson v. Bullock, 12 Conn. Rep. 38.

b This disability was continued in the Revised Constitution of New York of 1846, though the convention submitted to the test of popular suffrage, the question whether colored male citizens should have the right to vote without any such restriction, and a large majority of the electors of the state, in November, 1846, answered the question in the negative. In most of the United States, there is a distinction in respect to political privileges, between free white persons and free coloured persons of African blood; and in no part of the country, except in Maine, do the latter, in point of fact, participate equally with the whites, in the exercise of civil and political rights. The manumission of slaves is guarded, in some, at least, of the slave-holding states, from abuse and public mischief, by legislative provisions. Thus, for instance, in Tennessee, a deed or will emancipating a slave is not void, but it communicates to the slave only an imperfect right, until the state has assented to the act. The statute of 1777, authorizing the county courts to give the assent of the government to the manumis

II. Of hired servants.

The next class of servants which I mentioned, are

sion of slaves, restricted the assent to cases where the slave had rendered meritorious services. The act of 1801 repealed that part of the act of 1777, requiring the slave to have rendered meritorious services as a condition of the emancipation, and the county courts were to exercise their sound discretion in giving or withholding the assent. The act of 1829 vested the same discretion in the chancellors of the state. The act of 1831 required that slaves, upon being emancipated, be removed beyond the limits of the state; and, in accordance with the policy of the act, the courts are bound to make it a condition of the assent to the manumission, that security be given that the emancipated slave be forthwith removed beyond the limits of the United States, and no free negro is permitted to enter that state or return to it. See Fisher v. Dabbs, 6 Yerger's Tenn. Rep. 119, where Ch. J. Catron gives a strong picture of the degradation of free negroes living among whites, without motive, and without hope. In Virginia and Kentucky, it is understood that slaves can be set free by will without the concurrence of the state. The amended constitution of Tennessee, of 1834, prohibits the legislature from passing laws for the emancipation of slaves, without the consent of the owners. So, by the constitution of the territory of Arkansas, as made by a convention of delegates, in 1835, there is the like prohibition, and a prohibition, also, of laws preventing emigrants from bringing their lawful slaves with them from other states, for their own use, and not as merchandise. In Alabama, by statute, (Aik. Dig. 452,) all negroes, mulattoes, Indians, and all persons of mixed blood, descended from negro or Indian ancestors, to the third generation inclusive, though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person, whether bond or free, are declared incapable in law to be witnesses in any case whatever, except for and against each other. In Ohio, persons having more than one half white blood, are entitled to the privileges of whites. Wright's Ohio Rep. 578. The rule in Virginia and Kentucky is, that a mulatto, or one having one fourth of African blood, is presumptive evidence of being a slave, and that an apparently white person or Indian, is prima facie free, and is actually so, if having less than a fourth of African blood. 3 Dana's Ken. Rep. 385. The best test of the distinction between black and white persons is, says this case, autopsy, or the evidence of one's own senses, and personal inspection by a jury, is therefore the best and highest evidence as to color. By the amended constitution of North Carolina, in 1835, no free negro, mulatto, or free person of mixed blood, descended from negro ancestors to the fourth generation, inclusive, though one ancester of each generation may have been a white person, shall vote for members of the legislature. The right of voting is confined to white freemen by the constitutions of Delaware, Virginia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, South Carolina,

hired servants, and this relation of master and servant rests altogether upon contract.

The one is bound to

and Georgia; and by law, in Connecticut, none but free white persons can be naturalized. See supra, p. 72. In South Carolina, a free person of colour is not a competent witness in the courts of record, although both the parties to the suit are of the same class with himself. Groning v. Devana, 2 Bayley's Rep. 192.

The African race even when free, are essentially a degraded caste, of inferior rank and condition in society. See the judicial sense of their inferior condition as declared in the cases of the State v. Harden and the State v. Hill, 2 Spear's S. C. Rep. 150. 152. Marriages between them and whites are forbidden in some of the states where slavery does not exist, and they are prohibited in all the slaveholding states; and when not absolutely contrary to law, they are revolting, and regarded as an offence against public decorum. The statute of North Carolina prohibiting marriages between whites and people of colour, includes in the latter class all who are descended from negro ancestors to the fourth generation inclusive, though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person. State v. Watters, 3 Iredell, 455. By the Revised Statutes of Illinois, published in 1829, marriages between whites and negroes, or mulattoes, are declared void, and the persons so married are liable to be whipped, fined and imprisoned. By an old statute of Massachusetts, in 1705, such marriages were declared void, and they were so under the statute of 1786. And the prohibition was continued under the Mass. R. S. of 1835, which declared that no white person shall intermarry with a negro, Indian, or mulatto. This prohibition however has since been repealed. A similar statute provision exists in Virginia and N. C. Marriages of whites with blacks were forbidden in Virginia, from the first introduction of blacks, under ignominious penalties. Hening's Statutes, vol. i. p. 146. Such connexions, in France and Germany, constitute the degraded state of concubinage, which was known in the civil law as licita consuetudo semimatrimonium, but they are not legal marriages, because the parties want that equality of status, or condition, which is essential to the contract. Ohio and Indiana, are not slave-holding states; and yet, by statute, a negro, mulatto, or Indian, is not a competent witness, in civil cases, except where negroes, mulattoes, or Indians, alone are parties, nor in pleas of the state, except against negroes, mulattoes or Indians. In the act of Ohio of 1829, for the support and better regulation of common schools, the instruction in them is declared to be for the "white youth of every class and grade, without distinction." And in the act of Ohio of 1807, to regulate black and mulatto persons, it is declared that no black or mulatto person shall be permitted to settle or reside in the state, unless he first produce a fair certificate from some court within the United States, under the seal of the court, of his actual freedom. Nor is a negro or mulatto person permitted to emigrate into, and settle within VOL II. 24