The so-called “legal relation” of slave ownership of Negroes originated in that African Slave-Trade which our laws now punish as piracy; but Slavery is, in general, extended over all classes whom the slaveholders have been able to seize upon and retain; over Indians, free persons of color, and whites.

     SIR JOHN HAWKINS obtained leave of Queen Elizabeth, in the year 1562, to transport Africans into the American Colonies with their own free consent, a condition with which he promised to comply. But he forfeited his word, and forced them on board his ships by acts of devastation and slaughter. For this he was denominated a murderer and a robber, even by the historian Edwards, an advocate of the slave-trade. (Vide Clarkson’s History, p. 30; and Edwards’ Hist. W. Indies, vol. 2, pp. 43-4.) This was the beginning of the slave-trade by Englishmen. By Act of 23 George II., the “trade to Africa” was “regulated,” including a strict prohibition, under penalties, of the taking on board or carrying away any African “by force, fraud, or violence.” (Vide Clarkson, p. 314. See also Spooner’s Unconstitutionality of Slavery.)

     Under no other legal sanction than this, the forcible and fraudulent seizure and transportation of slaves from Africa to the British-American Colonies was carried on till the West India and North American Colonies were stocked with slaves, and many were introduced into England, held as slaves there, and the tenure accounted legal!

     But in 1772 it was decided by Lord Mansfield, in the case of James Somerset, a slave, that the whole process and tenure were illegal; that there was not, and never had been, any legal slavery in England. This decision was understood by Granville Sharpe, the chief agent in procuring it, to be applicable to the British Colonies, as well as to the mother-country, and undoubtedly it was so. The United States were then Colonies of Great Britain. But the slaves in the Colonies had no Granville Sharpe to bring their cause into the Courts, and the Courts were composed of slaveholders.

     In the great struggle, afterwards, in the British Parliament for abolishing the African slave-trade, William Pitt cited the Act of 23 George II., (which we have already mentioned,) and declared that instead of authorizing the slave-trade, as was pretended, it was a direct prohibition of the whole process, as it had actually been carried on by fraud, force, and violence. An elaborate investigation by Parliament sustained the statement; and, after a long struggle, the doctrine prevailed, and the traffic was expressly and solemnly abolished, though it has been secretly carried on to the present day, and is

prosecuted still. There is reason to believe that great numbers are still smuggled annually into the United States, as it is known that numerous plantations in the States bordering on the Gulf of Mexico are stocked with slaves, evidently African, and unable to speak English.* The whole process is, and has been, illegal, from beginning to end.

     The first introduction of slaves into Georgia was in direct violation of express statutes of the Colony itself, until slaveholders gained the ascendancy and repealed the laws. Into the other Colonies slaves were introduced a long time before there were any colonial enactments authorizing it, and consequently without any show of legal sanction. When statutes were enacted, they did not pretend to create or originate the relation. Nor did they define, with exactness, who were slaves and who were not slaves. They only assumed or took for granted the existence

of slave property, and made laws for its security and regulation. The consequence is, that no slaveholder can now prove that the particular slaves claimed by him were ever made slaves according to law, or that their ancestors were thus enslaved! And there are no statute laws in either of the States, by which it can be legally proved by the common rules and usages of Courts, as applied to other subjects, that slavery legally exists there. This was avowed by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, in the Senate of the United States, when the Fugitive Slave Bill was pending. He objected to the proposed “trial by jury” that it would bring up the question of the legality of slavery in the States, which, said he, it would be impossible to prove. Mr. Bayly, member of Congress from Virginia, took the same ground. So Congress struck out the jury trial, because slaveholders avowed their inability to prove the legality of slavery in a Court of law!

     It may be proper to explain, that while these gentlemen admit that there are no express statutes of the States that are adequate to the legalization of slavery, they nevertheless affect to believe that it is legalized by the common law! It is not strange that they are unwilling to go with that plea into the Courts! The Courts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky have already set it aside. (See the case of Marie Louise vs. Mariott et al., May Term, 1836; 8 Louisiana Reports, 475. Wheeler’s Law of Slavery, 348-9. Also, same principle in Rankin vs. Lydia, Fall Term, 1820; 2 Marshall’s Kentucky Rep., 467. Wheeler, p. 339. Also in Lunsford vs. Coquillon,

May Term, 1824; 14 Martin’s Louisiana Rep., 401. Wheeler, p. 335. See also Harvy and others vs. Decker and Hopkins, June Term, 1818; Walker’s Miss. Rep., 36. Wheeler, pp. 340-6. See also Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Thomas Aves, Aug., 1836. Wheeler, p. 368, and Story’s Conflict of Laws, 92-97.)*

     All these affirm that slavery, being without foundation in nature, is the creature of municipal law, and exists only under its jurisdiction. In the case first mentioned, (Marie Louise vs. Mariott et al.,) in which the slave had been taken to France by her master, and brought back to Louisiana, Judge Matthews said: “Being free for one moment in France, it was not in the power of her former owner to reduce her again to slavery.” (Wheeler, p. 349.)

     The absence, therefore, of municipal law, is fatal to the legality of the claims of the slaveholder, even by the Slave Code. In the case of Lansford vs. Coquillon, above mentioned, Judge Martin said “The relation of owner and slave is, in the States of this Union in which it has a LEGAL existence, the creature of municipal law.” (Wheeler, p. 335.)

     In Wheeler’s Law of Slavery, pp. 8-11, there is a brief account of the origin of slavery, which in no essential particular conflicts with the account we have here given of it, and in some of the most important

particulars is coincident with it. The same remarks will apply to the statements cited from Judge Matthews, of Louisiana, pp. 15, 16.

     “It is an admitted principle, that slavery has been permitted and tolerated in all the colonies established in America by the mother-country. Not only of Africans, but also of Indians. NO LEGISLATIVE ACT OF THE COLONIES CAN BE FOUND IN RELATION TO IT.” (Wheeler, pp. 8, 9.)

     In other words, the practice had no municipal law to sanction it. It was barely “tolerated;” that is, it was not suppressed. This is a very different thing from saying that it was LEGAL, which could not be without local enactment, even according to the lowest definition of legality. No lawyer ever speaks of the holding of property in horses (which is a natural right) as being “tolerated!” Again,

     It would have been interesting to have learned from the Court in which of the colonies, and when and how “express enactments” were made. It would then have confirmed fully the statement before quoted, that “no legislative enactments” originating slavery can be found. Again,

     In the case of Seville vs. Chretien, Sept. T.,1817;

5 Martin’s Louisiana Reports, 275, Judge Matthews admits, and labors to account for, “the absence of any legislative act of Furopean powers for the introduction of slavery into theirAmerican dominions.” (Wheeler, p.15.)

     So that American slavery owes its origin neither to American nor European legislation. The Courts, indeed, whenever they approach the subject, appear to be perplexed with the problem of its legal origin. As for example,

     Hall vs. Mullen, June T., 1821; 5 Har. and John’s Md. Rep., 190.—Judge Johnson said: “But the condition and rights of slaves in this State depend not exclusively either on the civil or feudal law, but may, perhaps, rest in part on both; subject, nevertheless, to such changes in their condition,” &c., “as the laws of the State may prescribe.” (Wheeler, pp. 10, 11.)

     By what authority, when, and how, the feudal law or the Roman civil law became established in the American States, we are not informed; nor is it very important, since the Courts at the South will be careful not to allow the feudal law to define slavery, as indeed appears by the preceding.

     Whence, then, is the original of slavery? And how does it appear to have been or to be legalized? In the case of

     Harvey and others vs. Decker and Hopkins, June T., Walker’s Miss. Rep., 36, the Court said: “Slavery is condemned by reason and the laws of nature. It exists, and can ONLY exist, through municipal regulations.” (Wheeler, pp. 340-6.)

     But the “municipal regulations” (so far as ORIGINATING the “legal relation” is concerned) appear, as has been seen, to be missing! They “cannot be found” on the statute book!

     The New-Jersey Judge who frankly confessed that he could not tell and did not care how the legal right to enslave the Indians originated, took the most prudent course, and should be imitated by all pro-slavery Judges who are so unfortunate as to stumble upon “the delicate question” of the origin of legalized negro slavery.

     “The State vs. Waggoner, April T., 1797; 1 Halstead’s N. J. Rep., 374-476.

     “They” [Indians] “have so long been recognized as slaves in our law, that it would be as great a violation of the rights of property to establish a contrary decision at the present day, as it would in the case of the Africans, and as useless to investigate the manner in which they originally lost their freedom.” (Wheeler, p. 18.)

     And yet, in Wheeler’s Law of Slavery, we find cases in which even Southern Judges (to their honor be it recorded) have awarded freedom to persons enslaved, upon the opposite principle, that “prescription is never pleadable to a claim of freedom.” This is the marginal note to the case of

     “Delphene vs. Devise, 14 Martin’s Louisiana Rep. 650:

     “Per Cur., Porter, J.: The plaintiff urges she is descended from one Marie Catherene, a negro woman now deceased, who was the slave of a certain Marie

Durse, and that the said Marie emancipated and set free Catherene and her children, Florence, Luce, and Catherene, the mother of the petitioner.” “The defendant pleaded the general issue, and prescription. We shall, before entering upon the merits, dispose of the exception which forms the second ground of defense in the defendant’s answer. We do so by referring to the third partida, title twenty-nine, law twenty-four, in which we find it provided that, if a man be FREE, no matter how long he may have been HELD by another AS A SLAVE, his state or condition cannot be thereby changed, nor can he be reduced to slavery in any manner whatever, on account of THE TIME he may have been held in servitude.” “The plaintiff is entitled to her freedom.” (Wheeler, p. 101.)

     Same principle in case of Metayer vs. Metayer, Jan. T., 1819; 6 Martin’s Louisiana Rep. 16. (Wheeler, p. 103.) Also in Vaughan vs. Phebe, Jan. T., 1827; Martin and Yerger’s Tenn. Rep. 1. (Wheeler, pp. 395-404.) Judge Crabb said: “The act of limitations would be no bar.” (p. 399.)

     Neither by statute, therefore, nor by the common law, nor yet by prescription, are the negroes in America LEGALLY held in bondage.

     But it is time now, in further confirmation of this, to cite more fully the language held by Judge Matthews, of Louisiana, in the case of Seville vs. Chretien, before mentioned.

     Having alluded to “the absence of any legislative act of the European powers for the introduction of slavery into their American dominions, Judge Matthews adds:

     “If the record of any such act exists, we have not been able to find any trace of it. It is true that Charles the Fifth, in the first part of the sixteenth century, granted a patent to one of his Flemish subjects for the privilege of importing four thousand negroes into America, which was purchased by some Genoese merchants, who were the first who brought into any regular form the commerce for slaves between Africa and America. A few years before, a small number of negroes had been introduced by order of Ferdinand. But the privilege granted by the Emperor, so far from being the first introduction of slavery into the New World, was intended as a means of enabling the planters to dispense with the slavery of the Indians by their European conquerors. A full account of these transactions may be seen in Robertson’s History of America.” (Wheeler, p. 15.)

     It will not, probably, be contended that the enslavement of the Indians, here mentioned, was under sanction of law. But let us hear Judge Matthews further:

     “On turning our attention to the first settlement of the British Colonies in America, we find that the introduction of negro slaves into one of the most important, was accidental. In the year 1616, as stated by Robertson, and 1620 by Judge Marshall, in his Life of Washington, a Dutch ship from the coast of Guinea sold a part of her cargo of negroes to the planters on James River. This is the first origin of the slavery of the blacks in the British-American provinces. About twenty years after, slaves were introduced

into New-England, and it is believed that Indians were at the same time, or before, held in bondage. THE ABSENCE OF ANY ACT OR INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT UNDER WHICH THEIR SLAVERY ORIGINATED IS NOT A MATTER OF GREATER SURPRISE THAN THAT THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN NONE FOUND AUTHORIZING THE SLAVERY OF THE BLACKS. The first Act of the Legislature of the Province of Virginia on the subject of the slavery of the Indians was passed in 1670, and one of its provisions, according to Judge Tucker, prohibits free or manumitted Indians from purchasing Christian servants. The words free or manumitted are useless and absurd, if there did not exist Indians who had been slaves and had been manumitted, before and at the time this Act was passed.” (Wheeler, pp. 15, 16.)

     Thus full and explicit is the testimony of Judge Matthews, of Louisiana, (and in the very act of making a decision against the claims of an Indian “to recover his liberty,”) to the fact that both Indians and negroes were originally enslaved in this country, in the absence of either European or colonial legislation to sanction or create the relation of owner and slave.

     Put this by the side of the Southern decisions, before cited, that slavery can have no legal existence in the absence of municipal law, and we have the result that slavery in this country had no legal origin, and has continued to exist without law; since (by the same testimony) “no legislative act of the Colonies can be found in relation to it.”

     The reader may be curious to know on what ground Judge Matthews, of Louisiana, in the case already cited, could maintain the legality of American slavery. It is this:

     “However, we are of opinion that it may be laid down as a legal axiom, that in all governments in which the municipal regulations are not absolutely opposed to slavery, persons already reduced to that state may be held in it; and we also assume it as a first principle that slavery has been permitted and tolerated in all the colonies established in America by European powers, most clearly as relates to the blacks and Africans, and also in relation to Indians, in the first periods of conquest and colonization.” (Wheeler, p. 15.)

     According to this “legal axiom,” any person in a State where there are no express statutes forbidding slavery, (as perhaps in Massachusetts and Maine,) may seize any other person and enslave him! And having done this, he may continue to “hold” him legally, because the laws have not forbidden it! By the same or a similar “legal axiom,” it would follow that in a State where no express statutes had been enacted against such minor injuries as assault, battery, and maiming, such practices might be considered legal! Thus the “axiom” ignores the existence of natural law and common law!

     Another important circumstance is, that the colonial charters, which were their constitutions of government, expressly provided that the Colonies should enact no laws contrary to the common law,

the Constitution and the fundamental laws of Great Britain. But these (as decided by Lord Mansfield, and as attested by Coke, Fortescue, and Blackstone) are incompatible with the existence of slavery.

     Another fact is, that the thirteen United States, on the fourth of July, 1776, declared that “all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Similar declarations were incorporated into the original Constitutions of the several States, and the Courts in Massachusetts decided that this was equivalent to an act abolishing slavery.

     Such was the origin, and such are the legal foundations of the “legal relation of master and slave” in this country; just as “legal” now, and no more so—

just as “innocent” now, and no more so, than in the person of John Hawkins, when he first forced a band of naked Africans on board his slave-ship, on the coast of Africa, or when he first offered them for sale in the Colonies; quite as cruel, Heaven-defying, and murderous now as it was then, and involving its present perpetrators in the same condemnation with John Hawkins, at the bar of an impartial posterity, and at the bar of God. “Where the foundation is weak,” says the common law, “the structure falls.” “What is invalid from the beginning, cannot be made valid by length of time.” (Noyes’ Maxims.) “He that stealeth a man and selleth him,” says Moses, “or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.” “The law was made for men-stealers,” says Paul. “Stealers of men,” said the Presbyterian General Assembly of 1794, “are those who bring off slaves or freemen, and keep, sell, or buy them.” “Those are man-stealers,” says Grotius, “who abduct, keep, sell, or buy slaves or freemen.” “To hold a man in a state of slavery,” said Dr. Jonathan Edwards, “is to be, every day, guilty of robbing him of his liberty, or of man-stealing.” “Men-buyers,” said John Wesley, “are exactly on a level with men-stealers.” We might quote similar language from Dr. Porteus, Bishop of London, Bishop Warburton, Macknight, Abraham Booth, and other eminent writers.

     This is the pretended “legal relation” of master and slave in America. Let us now see who are its subjects.

     1. The descendants of all who were stolen by John Hawkins and others on the coast of Africa! The law of hereditary slavery, as defended by Henry Clay and Mr. Gholson, and as practised by the entire community of slaveholders, identifies their slaveholding with the slaveholding of John Hawkins, and bases their claim of property upon his! If this is not so, then they are guilty of commencing the process de novo, and of kidnapping the innocent, helpless infant “upon their own hook!” This is called being “born to a slave inheritance!” This is the “innocent legal relation!” The slave law enables the heir to seize upon the slaves of his father or their offspring; and he is under the unfortunate necessity of seizing upon all within his grasp—not unfrequently his own father’s daughters and sons! Were they his own mother’s daughters and sons too, and if he had the power, it would be the same thing! Equally “legal”—equally “innocent!”

     And here is the evidence:

     Hudgins vs. Wrights, Nov. T., 1806; 1 Hen. and Munf., Va. Rep., 134. Per Cur., Tucker, J.: “From the first settlement of the colony of Virginia to the year 1788, October Session, all negroes, Moors, and mulattoes, except Turks and Moors in amity with Great Britain, brought into this country, by sea or land, were slaves; and, by the uniform declaration of our laws, the descendants of females remain slaves to this day, unless they can prove a right to freedom by actual emancipation, or by descent in maternal

line from an emancipated slave.” (Wheeler, p. 3.)

     Hudgins vs. Wrights, (same case.) “Held by the Court, Green, J., that, to solve all doubts, the Act of 1662 was passed, which declared that all children born in this country shall be bond or free, according to the condition of the mother. It is the rule of the civil law. By that law the state of the child was determined by that of the mother at the time of its birth.” (Ib., p. 3.) “The rule is universally followed.” (Ib., p. 34.)

     The code of the civil law prevails in all the States,” (says Mr. Wheeler, in a note on the preceding,) “and in many of them, statutes have been enacted on the subject.” (Ib. See also Stroud’s Sketch, p. 11.)

     By Act of Maryland, 1663, chap. 30, we are informed (in the preamble) that “divers free-born English women,” &c., “do intermarry with negro slaves, by which also divers suits may arise touching the issue of such women,” &c.; whereupon it was enacted that, in such cases, the woman shall also serve the master of her husband during his life, and their children “shall be slaves, as their FATHERS were.” But in 1770 this law was repealed, and it was enacted that the child should follow the condition of the mother instead of the father. (Stroud’s Sketch, pp. 8-10.)

     As mulattoes, with few exceptions, were the offspring of white fathers by slave mothers, this law, as was intended, secured to the father the right of

ownership over his own children—a very common and extensive manifestation of “the innocent legal relation.” As this law obtains in all the slave States, a large and increasing proportion of the slaves are held in slavery under its operation. If the child followed the condition of the father, the system would rapidly run itself out.

     2. Free people of color may be and continually are brought into slavery, in this country, in a variety of ways. Some of these ways have been already specified, incidentally, while treating of other topics. Some will be specified hereafter. And they will be clustered together and adverted to again, in a chapter on “The Liberties of the Free People of Color.” In the mean time, the topic demands attention here, in our inquiry concerning the subjects of slavery, and we shall cite some particulars which need not be repeated again.

     The general fact of the enslavement of the free colored people, of the facility with which it is done, and of the indifference, not to say the connivance, of the Southern Courts, will appear from the following:

     Davis vs. Sandford, Spring Term, 1815; 6 Littell’s Ky. Rep., 206.

     “The appellant sold to the appellee a slave. The deed of bargain and warranty certified that the negro was born a slave. It appeared that the negro had been in Ohio, and had, by the Courts of that State, been declared free; which fact was known to both parties—the seller alleging that the judgment declaring the slave free had no force or effect upon

his rights, as he was not made a party. The Court, Ch. J. Boyle, held that the warranty was not broken, it not being alleged or proved that the negro was not born a slave; and the justice of the case was with the seller—the buyer purchasing with a knowledge of all the facts, which was properly shown by parol evidence.” (Wheeler, p. 121.)

     But we must proceed to classify some of the principal methods of reducing free people of color to slavery.

     (a) Slaves made free by the voluntary act of their masters may be re-enslaved in various ways. A failure of conformity, in every minute particular, to the enactments regulating emancipations, (however vexatious and unreasonable,) will work the forfeiture of liberty to the emancipated.

     In cases where infant children of slaves were made free by the will of their “owners,” but inadvertently the precise time of their becoming free failed to be specified, such “shall be esteemed slaves for life!” (Maryland Laws, Act of 1809, chap. 71. Stroud’s Sketch, p. 151. See chapter on Legislative and Judicial Obstructions to Emancipation.)

     (b) A fall and exact compliance with the legal regulations, in emancipating slaves, does not always secure their freedom. The Legislature of North Carolina set aside the decisions of the Courts, and re-enslaved large numbers who had been legally set free. (See chapter just mentioned.)

     In Virginia, “if any emancipated slave (infants excepted) shall remain in the State more than

twelve months after his or her right to freedom shall have accrued, he or she shall forfeit all such right, and may be apprehended and sold by the overseers of the poor, &c., for the benefit of the Literary Fund!!!” (1 Revised Code of 1819, 436.)

     President Jefferson, in his will, having emancipated five of his slaves, adds: “I humbly and earnestly request of the Legislature of Virginia a confirmation of the bequests to these servants, with leave to remain in the State, where their families and connections are,” &c.

     (c) Colored persons who cannot prove their freedom may be enslaved. In Mississippi, “every negro or mulatto found within the State, and not having the ability to show himself entitled to freedom, may be sold, by order of the Court, as a slave.” (Mississippi Revised Code, 389.) And no negro or mulatto can be a witness to prove his freedom!

     In North Carolina, by decision of the Courts, this rule is limited to negroes, and the mixed race is exempted. It is by this unrighteous presumption against color that suspected fugitives, though unclaimed, are sold for the payment of their jail fees in Washington City. In South Carolina, by Act of 1740, the doctrine is affirmed, both in respect to negroes and the mixed races. The same in Georgia by Act of 1770. Also in Mississippi, Revised Code, 389. In Virginia, there is no statute, but the Courts have affirmed the doctrine, except where Indians or white persons are claimed as slaves. (See Stroud’s Sketch, p. 19; also, pp. 76-88, including Notes.)

     “Every negro is presumed to be a slave.“—“This is the general doctrine in all the States, and the application of a different rule is only in cases where the person is a mulatto, or some other grade approximating to a white person.” (Wheeler, p. 5.)

     “Or person of color.”—“Color and long possession are such presumptive evidence of slavery as to throw the burden of proof on the party claiming his freedom.” (Ib., pp. 5, 6; case of Davis, a man of color, vs. Curry, Fall T., 1810; 2 Bibb’s Ky. Rep., 238.)

     And who is a “person of color?”

     “When there is a distinct and visible admixture of African blood, the person is to be denominated a mulatto, or person of color.” (State vs. Davis and Hanna, Dec. T., 1831; 2 Bailey’s S. C. Rep., 558. Wheeler, p. 4.)

     And the fact of color “may be known by inspection.” (Wheeler, p. 5; also p. 22.)

     (d) Free negroes may be enslaved for “entertaining” a runaway slave, and for nonpayment of the fine thus incurred! (See law of South Carolina before cited, and the consequent sentence of the Court of Charleston in the case of “Hannah Elliott, a free black woman, with her daughter Judy, and sons Simon and Sam.” Stroud’s Sketch, pp. 16, 17.)

     (e) Also, for selling or giving away to a slave their certificates of freedom, as before mentioned. (Laws of Maryland, 1796, chap. 67, sect. 18. Snethen’s Dist. Col., pp. 28-9.)

     (f) Also, free negroes and mulattoes, arrested on suspicion of being fugitives, but not claimed by any

one, and unable to pay their jail fees, are sold by the sheriff! (Jay’s Inquiry, p. 154, and Jay’s View, p. 33, &c.)

     (g) “Where a white woman intermarries with a slave, the issue are slaves; though the Act subjecting such issue to slavery was repealed, if the marriage took place before the repeal of the Act.” (Butler vs. Boardman, Sept. T., 1770; 1 Har. and M’Hen. Md. Rep., 371. Wheeler, p. 21.)

     (h) “The issue of slaves entitled to liberty at a future day, if born before the day, are slaves.” (Maria vs. Surbaugh, Feb. T.,1824; 2 Rand’s Va. Rep., and other cases. Wheeler, p. 32.)

     (i) “Children born during a qualified manumission of their mothers, are born slaves.” (McCutchen et al. vs. Marshall et al., Jan. T.; 8 Peters’ U. S. Rep., 220, and another case. Wheeler, p. 35.)

     (j) Intermarriages with whites are punished by enslavement. (Maryland, Act of 1717, chap. 13, sect. 5.) “If any free negro or mulatto intermarry with any white woman; or if any white man shall intermarry with any negro or mulatto woman, such negro or mulatto shall become a slave during life, except mulattoes born of white women, &c., who shall become servants for seven years.” (Stroud, p. 19.) For “a white man” to live in adulterous concubinage with his slave woman, incurs no penalty at all. Adulterers are entitled Honorable, but marriage is punished by the Judge!

     (k) Innumerable free persons of color are kidnapped and sold by the operation of the laws excluding

colored witnesses, and forbidding colored persons to resist white persons. In Philadelphia, within two years, more than thirty persons, mostly children, known to be free, were kidnapped and carried away, and only five of them, with great difficulty and expense, were reclaimed. (Stroud’s Sketch, p. 74.)

     This process of kidnapping is facilitated by the fact that such vast numbers of slaves are carried from State to State, not only by the removal of “owners,” but by the inter-State slave-trade. The kidnapper of free colored persons readily passes for a removing owner, or for a dealer in slaves; and, in fact, many of the dealers are themselves kidnappers of free negroes and mulattoes. Persons ostensibly or in reality employed to arrest fugitives are known frequently to practise the same villany even in the free States, and under this cover they are generally secure. The colored person seized cannot testify in a slave State, and no colored person can testify for him. At the South, very few white persons would pay the least attention to their protestations of being free. It would seldom or never embarrass the auctioneer, or diminish the number and amount of the bids. This is evident from the fact that “hundreds of advertisements in the Southern papers” of sales of negroes at auction, and of runaways, describe them as claiming to be free! See Weld’s “Slavery as it is,” pp. 162-3, where specimens of such advertisements may be found, one of them describing a negro “who was originally from New-York.”

     (l) Free people of color, by passing out of a free

State into a slave State, (where by the Federal Constitution they are entitled to all the rights of free citizens,) incur penalties of fines for so doing, which, if unable to pay, they may be enslaved! (Jay’s Inquiry, p. 24. See chapter on “Liberties of Free People of Color.”)

     (m) Negroes unlawfully imported from Africa are enslaved, not only when clandestinely smuggled, (which is done to a great extent,) but, strange to tell, when brought into port by capture of naval officers! A case occurring at Savannah, and before alluded to, is narrated circumstantially in Weld’s “Slavery as it is,” pp. 139-40. So openly and systematically has this been done, that the States of Louisiana, Georgia, and Alabama, have enacted statutes for the express purpose of having the slaves sold for the benefit of the State Treasury! A law of Congress, conferring power on the State Legislatures to dispose of the slaves illegally imported, was not repealed until 1819. And the law of Alabama (of 1823) is still more recent, and in open defiance of the laws of the United States abolishing the African slave-trade! (See Stroud’s Sketch, pp. 158-164.)

     And the Courts have accordingly laid down the principle, that “a slave does not become free on his being illegally imported into the State.” Such is the marginal note to the case of “Gomez vs. Bonneval, June T., 1819; 6 Martin’s Lou. Rep. 656.—Per Cur., Derbigny, J.: The petitioner is a negro in actual state of slavery: he claims his freedom, and

is bound to prove it. In his attempt, however, to prove that he was free before he was introduced into this country, he has failed, so that his claim now rests entirely on the laws prohibiting the introduction of slaves in the United States. That the plaintiff was imported since that prohibition does exist, is a fact sufficiently established by the evidence. What right he has acquired under the laws prohibiting such importation is the only question which we have to examine. Formerly, while the Act dividing Louisiana into two Territories was in force in this country, slaves introduced here in contravention of it were freed by the operation of that law; but that Act was merged in the legislative provisions which were subsequently enacted on the subject of the importation of slaves into the United States generally. Under the now existing laws, the individuals thus imported acquire no personal rights. They are mere passive beings, who are disposed of according to the will of the different Legislatures. In this country they are to remain slaves, and to be sold for the benefit of the State. The plaintiff, therefore, has nothing to claim as a freeman; and as to a mere change of master, should such be his wish, he cannot be listened to in a Court of justice.” (Wheeler, pp. 380-1.)

     2. But the descendants of Africans are not the only subjects of American slavery. The native Indians have also been enslaved, and their descendants are still in slavery. In South Carolina, by Act of 1740, “All negroes, Indians, (free Indians in

amity with this Government, and negroes, mulattoes, and mestizoes who are now free, excepted,) mulattoes and mestizoes who now are or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their issue and offspring born or to be born, shall be and are hereby declared to be and to remain for ever hereafter, absolute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the mother.” (2 Brevard’s Digest, 229.) Similar in Georgia. (Prince’s Dig., 446, Act of 1770.) And in Mississippi. (Rev. Code Miss. of 1823, p. 369.) And in Virginia. (1 Rev. Code of 1819.) And in Kentucky. (2 Littell and Swigert’s Dig., 1149-50.) And in Louisiana. (Civil Code Lou., art. 183. Stroud’s Sketch, pp. 11, 12-15.) Same in New-Jersey, by decision of Supreme Court, 1797. (Stroud, p. 16.)

     And finally,

     3. Whites are enslaved. Several known instances have occurred already of the successful kidnapping of free whites, without a drop of negro or Indian blood in their veins! And the process of intermixture of the races is now so far advanced, and is so rapidly going forward, that a “perfectly white complexion, light blue eyes, and flaxen hair,” are scarcely a presumptive evidence of freedom. Persons thus described are advertised as runaway slaves; are liable to be pursued with muskets and bloodhounds, shot, maimed, captured, brought before United States Marshals, sworn to be slaves, given up and sent to the rice and cotton and sugar plantations of the South, without trial by jury, and by a “summary” process that precludes any thing deserving the

name of an investigation. Sometimes, under a peremptory refusal to wait a few hours for witnesses. Yet the people imagine themselves free, and their liberties secure under this enactment, (the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850,) which, while it makes no distinction of color, forbids them, under pains and penalties, to “harbor” and “entertain” each other when thus pursued! By the estimate of Henry Clay, (speech in Senate, 1839,) one hundred and fifty years will obliterate the distinctions of race and color in this country, but without abolishing slavery! Reposing, as it does, by his showing, upon the “rights of property,” and “sanctified and sanctioned” already “by two centuries of legislation,” its conservators look for its perpetuity, as they do for the perpetuity of property in “brood mares and their increase.” For “that is property which the law declares to be property.” The blacks will not be the slaves of the whites, but the poorer will be the slaves of the wealthier; and the most they can hope for is that, perhaps, they will be kept “fat and sleek!” Their idolized statesmen, their venerated religious teachers, can promise them nothing better. Nor do they seem to desire it! The “innocent legal relation” of slave ownership conducts us to this result, and it leaves us here.

     In our chapter concerning “Fugitives from Slavery,” it was shown that the State of Maryland, at an early date, (1715,) enacted laws by which all persons, irrespective of color, were forbidden to travel out of their own county without an official pass;

and “if apprehended, not being sufficiently known, nor able to give a good account of themselves,” the magistrates might deal with them as with runaways, and sell them temporarily, to pay their fines. Our Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850, in like manner, knows nothing of color; and its provisions are more stringent and humiliating than the old law of Maryland!

     The reader is referred to Jay’s View, pp. 83-87, for a number of advertisements of runaway slaves, in which they are described as being white.

     As for example—

     “$100 REWARD.—The above reward will be paid for the apprehension of my man William. He is a very bright mulatto, straight yellowish hair. I have no doubt he will change his name, and try to pass himself for a white man, which he may be able to do, unless to a close observer.—T. S. PITCHARD.”

     “$100 REWARD.—Ran away from James Hyhart, Paris, Ky., &c., the mulatto boy Norton, &c. Would be taken for a white boy, if not closely examined. His hair is black and straight, &c.”—New-Orleans Free American, 11th Aug. 1836.

     Anderson Bowles advertises, in the Richmond Whig, 6th Jan. 1836, his “negro!” who has “straight hairand is “nearly white;” so that “a stranger” would suppose there was “no African blood in him.” “He was with my boy Dick a short time since at Norfolk, and offered to sell him, but escaped, under pretense of being a WHITE MAN.”

     In the Newbern Spectator, 13th March, 1837, John T. Lane advertises “William, about 19 years old,

quite white, and would not readily be taken for a slave.”

     Edwin Peck, Mobile, April 22, 1837, offers $100 reward for a slave named Sam, “light sandy hair, blue eyes, ruddy complexion; is so white as very easily to pass for a white man.”

     In the New-Orleans Bee of June 22, 1831, P. Balie advertises as a runaway, “Maria, with a clear white complexion.”

     “Mr. Paxton, a Virginia writer, tells us in his work on Slavery, that ‘the best blood of Virginia runs in the veins of slaves.’” (Jay’s View, p. 85.)

     “Dr. Torrey, in his work on Domestic Slavery in the United States, p. 14,” relates, that “not far from Fredericktown there was a slave estate, on which there were several white females, of as fair and elegant appearance as white ladies in general, held in legal bondage as slaves.” (Ib., pp. 85-6.)

     “White lady fugitives” have been hunted in the State of New-York, and have taken refuge in Canada. (Vide Utica “Friend of Man,” and the Syracuse papers.)

     “A Missouri paper, reporting the trial of a slave boy, says, ‘All the physiological marks of distinction which characterize the African descent had disappeared.’” (Jay’s View, p. 86.)

     Mr. Miles, in his Register, tells us that John C. Calhoun related a similar instance. (Ib., pp. 86-7.)

     “Mary Gillmore, of Philadelphia, claimed as a runaway slave in 1835, was proved to be the child of Irish parents, and had not a single drop of African blood in her veins.” (Ib., p. 86.)