Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/68

54 a slave by will, testament, contract, or stipulation, or who contrives indirectly to confer freedom by allowing his slaves to enjoy the profit of their labor and skill, incurs a penalty not exceeding one thousand dollars; and the slaves who have been the object of such benevolence, are ordered to be seized and sold at public outcry.

In North Carolina, "no slave is allowed to be set free, except for meritorious services, to be adjudged of and allowed by the county court, and license first had and obtained thereupon;" and any slave manumitted contrary to this regulation may be seized, put in jail, and sold to the highest bidder. In Mississippi all the above obstacles to emancipation are combined in one act.

In Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia, and Maryland, greater facilities are afforded to emancipation. An instrument in writing, signed by two witnesses, or acknowledged by the owner of the slave in open court, is sufficient; the court reserving the power to demand security for the maintenance of aged or infirm slaves. By the Virginia laws, an emancipated negro, more than twentyone years old, is liable to be again reduced to slavery, if he remain in the State more than twelve months after his manumission.

In Louisiana, a slave cannot be emancipated, unless he is thirty years old and has behaved well at least four years preceding his freedom; except a slave who has saved the life of his master, his master's wife, or one of his children. It is necessary to make known to the judge the intention of conferring freedom, who may authorize it, after it has been advertised at the door of the court house forty days, without exciting any opposition.

Stephens in his history of West India slavery, supposes that the colonial codes of England are the only ones expressly framed to obstruct emancipation. He is mistaken;—the American republics share that distinction with their mother country. There are plenty of better things in England to imitate.

According to the Mosaic law, a Hebrew could not retain his brother, whom he might buy as a servant, more than six years, against his consent, and in the seventh year he went out free for nothing. If he came by