shall be free.' 15, 16. Relate to the manumission of slaves. The other sections contain re-enactments of police regulations.

1790, c. 28. (2 Greenl. 312.) Amending the above act, by two sections respecting transportation of criminal slaves and manumission cases.

1798, c. 27. This confirms former manumissions made by Quakers and others, not in conformity with statute law.

1799, c. 62. An act for the gradual abolition of slavery. Provides "that any child born of a slave within this State after the fourth day of July next, shall be deemed and adjudged to be born free. Provided, nevertheless, that such child shall be the servant of the legal proprietor of his or her mother until such servant, if a male, shall arrive at the age of twenty-eight years; and if a female, at the age of twenty-five years; that such proprietor, &c., shall be entitled to the service of such child until he or she shall arrive to the age aforesaid, in the same manner as if such child had been bound to service by the overseers of the poor." Remainder, prescribing certain duties on the part of the masters, allows them to abandon their right to such service, and permits emancipation of all slaves by their

owners.

1801, c. 188. An act concerning slaves and servants. Sec. 1. Enacts that slaves shall continue such: baptism no manumission. 2. Permitting manumission; fixing liability of master. 3. Quaker manumissions. 4. That no slave shall hereafter be imported or brought into this State, unless the person importing or bringing such slave shall intend to reside, shall have resided elsewhere, and have, for a year before, owned such. Every slave otherwise brought in shall be free. 5. Penalty on persons selling slaves brought into State. 6. Penalty for attempting to export a slave. 7. Non-residents may travel in the State with slaves. Citizens may take away slaves on journeys; must return with them. Persons removing may take away slaves, &c. 8, 9, 10. Re-enacts the law of 1799 in terms somewhat different. 11-20. Various ordinary police regulations.

1 See on the interpretation of this provision Sable v. Hitchcock, 2 Johns. Cases, 79. See Kent, J., ib. p. 85, holding that slaves in New York were then property; and in Fish v. Fisher, ib. 89.

1802, c. 52, and 1804, c. 40. Amending the above act in respect to maintenance of pauper children of slaves, and the abandonment of children of slaves. 1807, c. 77. Amending the same; limiting still farther the power of residents to carry away slaves.

1808, c. 96. An act to prevent the kidnapping of free people of color, has no reference to fugitive slaves.

1809, c. 44. An act to enable, &c. Enables manumitted slaves to take "by descent, devise, or otherwise;" that all marriages contracted where a party or parties "was, were, or may be slaves," shall be valid, and the children legitimate. Sec. 3 facilitates manumission.'

1810, c. 115. Additional to act of 1801. Sec. 1. Forbids importation of slaves by persons coming to reside-nine months' stay to be accounted as residence. 2. Reciting an evasion, provides that no indenture for service made by a person before held as a slave in another State shall be valid here. 3. Requires masters of slaves to be freed at twenty-one years to teach them to read. c. 193. An act for various " poses. Sec. 23. Authorizes emigrants, from Virginia and Maryland into counties named, to hire out their slaves for seven years or less.

pur

1811, c. 201. An act to prevent frauds, &c., and slaves from voting. Sec. 3-7. Requiring production of certificates of freedom from blacks or mulattoes offering to vote.

1813, c. 203. An act for various purposes. Sec. 29. Amends the act of 1801, § 4, in respect to slaves belonging to persons resident near the State boundary, and owning and occupying lands in the adjoining State.

In the revision of the statutes known as Revised Laws of 1813, 2d vol. pp. 201-209, 247, the former statutes on this subject are re-enacted.

1814, c. 18. An act to authorize the raising of two regiments of men of color. Sec. 3. All the commissioned officers to be white men. 6. Slaves may, with the consent of owners, be enlisted, and when discharged shall be deemed manumit

1 Jackson v. Lervey, 5 Cowen, 397, where the operation of this statute is examined.

ted, &c.

c. 82, and 1815, c. 145, contain new provisions for certificates of freedom, &c., required of free blacks for

election purposes.

1816, c. 45, An act concerning the maintenance of certain persons formerly slaves.

1817, c. 137. An act relative to slaves and servants, for the most part, is a more systematic arrangement of the existing law. The last section repeals the laws in the revision of 1813, above referred to. Sec. 9. Declares free any person imported who has been held as a slave. Exceptions in sec. 15 as to slaves of travelers. 16. Slaves held by persons coming to reside. 29. Re-enacts the law (1808) against kidnapping colored persons, and reciting," Whereas persons of color, owing service or labor in other States sometimes secrete themselves on board of vessels while such vessels are lying in the ports or harbors of other States, and thereby subject the commanders thereof to heavy fines and penalties, therefore, 30. That it shall be lawful for all such captains, &c., to seize such person of color, and take him before any magistrate of a county, or, if in the city of New York, before the justices of the police office, and upon proof by oath or affirmation, to the satisfaction of the said magistrate or justice, that such person of color did, without his consent or knowledge, secrete himself on board his vessel, such magistrate or justice shall give a certificate thereof to such captain, &c., which shall be a sufficient warrant to send or carry such person of color to the port or place from which such person was so brought. Provided, that nothing in this section contained shall prevent such person of color, when brought before such magistrate or justice, from proving that he does not owe service or labor in another State."

Sec. 32. Enacts that every negro, mulatto, or mustee within this State, born before the fourth of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, shall from and after the fourth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, be free."1

In the case of Griffin v. Potter, 14 Wendell, 209, it had been insisted that this clause "was unconstitutional so far forth as it assumed to forfeit then-existing rights." In affirming the validity of the act, Savage, Ch. J., uses language which is interesting in connection with the question discussed in the last chapter (vol. I. p. 562), though also illustrating the confusion of ideas which has prevailed on this

1819, c. 141. An act to amend the above, substitutes more stringent provisions for the sections relating to exporting slaves or servants, and the kidnapping of free persons. Sec. 4. Permits owners who reside part of the year in this State, to carry away and bring back slaves.

1823, Jan. 1. Second Constitution. Art. II. sec. 1, prescribes qualification of electors, concluding, but no man of color, unless he shall have been for three years a citizen of this State and, for one year next preceding any election, shall be seized and possessed of a freehold estate to the value, &c., &c. (such estate not being required of whites). Art. VII. sec. 1, provides that "No member of this State shall be disfranchised or deprived of any of the rights or privileges secured to any citizen thereof, unless by the law of the land, or the judgment of his peers."

1824, c. 177. Relating to government of the Stockbridge Indians. Sec. 2. That no negro or mulatto shall vote in their councils.

1826, Nov. An amendment to the Constitution, extending the elective franchise, reserves the previous clause relating

subject. "It is contended that the statute, assuming to divest a vested right, is unauthorized and void pro tanto. It is a fundamental principle of our government that all men are born free and equal-that is, entitled by nature to equal freedom and equal rights. The regulations of civil society have qualified the rights of different portions of society. The best interests of the whole sometimes require that some shall be put under the guardianship and control of others. It is, therefore, by virtue of the arbitrary institutions of society, and by those alone, that one man has an interest in the services of another: property, strictly speaking, in the person of a human being cannot exist. A right in one man to the services of another, may, and, in a qualified form, does exist in every well-regulated society. The parent controls the services of his child, the guardian his ward, the master his apprentice. By what right? it may be asked. I answer, by authority of law -by force of the positive institutions of civil society. Is it not equally competent for the Legislature to say that an apprentice shall serve till twenty-eight as till twenty-one? Cannot the Legislature alter the paternal rights of a father, and give him the services of his child for the same period? The power of the Legislature over this subject is sufficiently ample to justify any act which can come in question in this case. When our government was first instituted, one portion of the population was in bondage to the other. Slavery existed by virtue of the laws which were in force previous to our political existence as a State. It could be justified only by necessity. It was at war with our principles, and, as the Legislature was of the opinion that there was no necessity for its continuance, a law was passed to operate upon those thereafter to be born. This, I apprehend, was done in tenderness to the prejudices of those who were tenacious of what they termed vested rights."

to men of color, but otherwise extending the franchise to every adult male citizen, irrespective of property, taxes, &c.

1827, c. 312. An act against kidnapping persons other than negroes, mulattoes, or mustees.

1828.-Revised Statutes, Part III., ch. 9, Tit. 1, Art. 1. Relating to habeas corpus. Sec. 6. Authorizes the issuing the writ, by courts and officers, described in sec. 23, art. 2, of the same title,' in behalf of the claimant of a fugitive from service, &c. 7. Proof entitling to the writ to be by affidavit. 8, 9, 10. Proceedings on hearing. On failure to prove claim, the claimant to forfeit one hundred dollars to the alleged fugitive, and be liable for damages. 11. On the claim being made out, the court or officer to grant a certificate. 12. "Such certificate shall authorize the person having the same to remove such fugitive therein named, without any unnecessary delay, through and out of this State, on the direct route to the place of the residence of the claimant of such fugitive." 13. Fees, when to be paid. 14. "No justice of the peace, magistrate, or other officer appointed under the authority of this State, other than the courts and officers herein authorized to issue writs of habeas corpus, shall be authorized to grant any warrant," &c., or grant certificate. Penalty to the party aggrieved. 15, 16, 17. Notwithstanding the detention under the habeas corpus, the alleged fugitive may have his writ de homine replegiando, and Until final judgment on the latter writ, the proceedings under the habeas corpus to be suspended. 18, 19. Prohibition and penalty against taking or removing fugitive otherwise than as here provided. -, Part I. ch. 20, Tit. 7. Of the importation into this State of persons held in slavery; of their exportation; of their services; and prohibiting their sale. Sec. 1. Per

1 These are: 1. The supreme court during its sitting. 2. During any term or vacation of the supreme court, the chancellor, or any one of the justices of the supreme court, or any officer who may be authorized to perform the duties of a justice of the supreme court at chambers, being or residing within the county, or, in certain cases, an officer of such authority in any adjoining county. In the case of Jack v. Martin, in 12 Wendell, 311, which occurred in 1833, habeas corpus was issued by the Recorder of the city of New York, under the Rev. Statutes; see the case post in Ch. XXIX.

2

Suspended, but not vacated;-Ex parte Floyd v. The Recorder, 11 Wendell, 180.