Page:Notes on the History of Slavery - Moore - 1866.djvu/26

 If under the original law the children of enlaved captives and trangers might poibly have claimed exemption from that ervitude to which the recognized common law of nations aigned them from their birth; this amendment, by triking out the word "trangers," removed the neceity for alienage or foreign birth as a qualification for lavery, and took off the prohibition againt the children of laves being "born into legal lavery in Maachuetts."

It is true there is little probability that in thoe days the natural rights of thee little heathen, born in a Chritian land, would have been much regarded, or that the owners of lave parents would have had much difficulty in quieting the title by having the increae of their chattels duly "judged" to ervitude by authoritie," in accordance with the civil law; till there might have been color for the claim to freedom, which this amendment effectually barred. And this was in accordance, too, with the law of Moes—the children of laves remained laves, being the clas decribed as "born in the houe."

This Maachuetts law of lavery was not a regulation of the tatus of indentured ervants. "Bond-lavery" was not the name of their ervice, neither is it placed among the "Liberties of ervants," but thoe of "Forreiners and trangers." And in all the editions of the laws, this ditinction is maintained; "Bond-lavery" being invariably a eparate title. White ervants for a term of years would hardly be deignated as trangers, and a careful tudy of the whole ubject