than in either Massachusetts or Connecticut. In the year 1706, it was declared by statute (a) that no slave should be a witness for or against any freeman, in any matter, civil or criminal. (b) The consequence of this was, that a slave found alone, could be beaten with impunity by any freeman, without cause. It was shortly after enacted, (c) that if any slave talked impudently to any Christian, he should be publicly whipped, at the discretion of any justice of the peace, not exceeding forty stripes. By successive acts of the colonial assembly, *255 passed in 1702, 1712, and 1730, (d) the debasement * of the civil condition of slaves was greatly augmented. The master and mistress were authorized to punish their slaves at discretion, not extending to life or limb, and each town was authorized to appoint a common whipper for their slaves, to whom a salary was to be allowed. If guilty of any of the numerous capital offences of that day, they were to be tried by three justices of the peace, and five freeholders, and were denied the benefit of the testimony of their associates, if in their favor, though it might be used against them; and they were to be put to death in such a manner as this formidable tribunal thought proper. (e)

In the year 1740, it was observed by the legislature, that all due encouragement ought to be given to the direct importation of slaves, and all smuggling of slaves condemned as “an eminent discouragement to the fair trade." (ƒ)

(a) Colony Laws, Smith's edit. vol. i. p. 69.

(b) This disability was applied to slaves by the other colonies. In Kentucky, by a statute as late as 1798, no negro, mulatto, or Indian, can be a witness, except in cases in which negroes, mulattoes, or Indians alone should be parties. But this restriction is understood to apply only to testimony in suits pending between the parties, and does not disqualify freemen of color to take an oath and swear to facts in every case in which a white man may be concerned. 1 Dana's Ken. Rep. 467. (c) Colony Laws, vol. i. p. 72.

(d) Ibid. vol. i. pp. 193-199. Bradford's edit. of the Colony Laws, 1719.

(e) They were occasionally adjudged to the stake; and an execution of this kind, and probably the last of this kind, was witnessed at Poughkeepsie, shortly before the commencement of the revolutionary war.

(ƒ) Colony Laws, vol. i. pp. 283, 284. It ought, however, to be noted, in honor of the laws promulgated under the early administration of the colony by the Duke of York, and known as the Duke's Laws, and which continued in force from 1665 to 1683, that it was forbidden to a "Christian to keep a slave, except persons adjudged

Such were the tone and policy of the statute law of New York on the subject of domestic slavery, during the whole period of the colony history; but after the era of our independence, the principles of natural right and civil liberty were better known and obeyed, and domestic slavery speedily and sensibly felt the genial influence of the Revolution. The first act that went to relax the system was passed in 1781, and it gave freedom to all slaves who should serve in the American army for the term of three years, or until regularly discharged. (a) A more liberal provision was made in 1786, by which all slaves, becoming public property by attainder, or confiscation of their master's estates, were immediately set free; and if unable to maintain themselves, they were to be supported by the state. (b) These were only partial alleviations *of a great public evil. In 1788, *256 a more extensive and effectual stroke was aimed at the practice of domestic slavery. It put an absolute stop to all further importation of slaves after the first of June, 1785, by prohibiting future sales of such slaves. Facilities were also given to the manumission of slaves. The penal code was greatly meliorated in respect to slaves. In capital cases, they were to be tried by jury, according to the course of the common law, and the testimony of slaves was made admissible for, as well as against each other, in criminal cases. (c) In one single case, the punishment of slaves was made different from that of whites. If convicted of crimes under capital, and the court should certify transportation to be a proper punishment, they might be transported to foreign parts by the master. (d) In 1799, the legislature took a step towards the final removal, as well as the intermediate mitigation of this evil. They commenced a system of laws for the gradual abolition of slavery. (e) It was declared

thereto by authority, or such as have willingly sold or shall sell themselves." See an analysis of the Duke's Laws in Thompson's History of Long Island, New York, 1839, p. 102, and which contained many wise and just provisions.

(a) Act of N. Y., March 20th, 1781, ch. 32, sec. 6.

(b) Act of May 1st, 1786, ch. 58, sec. 29, 30.

(c) Act of February 22d, 1788, ch. 40. This act was hostile to the importation of slaves as an article of trade, and not to the existence of slavery itself, for it reënacted the rule of the civil law that the children of female slaves should follow the state and condition of the mother.

(d) Act of March 22d, 1790, ch. 28. (e) Act of March 29th, 1799, ch. 62.

that every child born of a slave within the state, after the 4th of July, 1799, should be born free, though liable to be held as the servant of the proprietor of the mother, until the age of twentyeight years in a male, and twenty-five in a female, in like manner as if such person had been bound by the overseers of the poor to service for that period. This law was further enlarged. and improved in 1810, and it was then ordained (a) that the importation of slaves, except by the owner, coming into the state for a residence short of nine months, should be absolutely prohibited, and every slave imported contrary to the act was declared free. All contracts for personal service, by any person held or possessed as a slave out of the state, were declared to be

void; and to entitle a person to claim the services of a *257 person born of a slave, *after the 4th of July, 1799, he must have used all reasonable 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, (b) 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

(a) Act of March 30, 1810, ch. 115.
(b) Laws of New York, sess. 40, ch. 137.

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. (a) In the language of the New York

(a) 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,) nor by the act of congress of Feb. 12, 1793, ch. 7, made in pursuance thereof, for they only apply to persons escaping, or being fugitives from service or labor. 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 persons 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 color 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. Aves, 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, 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

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 a slave (with *258 the exception in favor of travellers) shall be free." But

though slavery be practically abolished in New York, the amended constitution of 1821, art. 2, placed people of color, 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)

property. The constitution and laws of the United States secure this right to reclaim fugitive slaves against state legislation. In some of the slaveholding states it is held, that if a slave from such a state goes lawfully into a non-slaveholding state, and acquires a domicil there with his master, or is emancipated there by his master, he be comes emancipated, and ceases to be a slave on his return. But if he be carried there by his master for a temporary purpose, and returns, his state of slavery is resumed. Lunsford v. Coquillon, 14 Martin's Louis. Rep. 405. 2 A. K. 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. R. 94. In the case of Marie Louise v. Marot, 9 Louis. Rep. 473, and of Smith v. Smith, 13 Louis. 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 ». Generis, 16 Louis. 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. Bulloch, 12 Conn. Rep. 38.1 (a) Vol. i. p. 659, sec. 16.

(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 colored 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 manu

1 A person residing in Kentucky, who takes his slave to a free state for a temporary purpose, or sends him there for such purpose, does not, by the laws of that state, forfeit his right to him on his return. Graham v. Strader, 5 B. Monroe's R. 173. But if the owner of a slave remove into a free state with his slave, with the intention of residing there, the slave is thereby emancipated. Josephine v. Poultney, 1 La. Ann. R. 329. Matter of Ralph, 1 Morris's (Iowa) R. 1.