Public Opinion in Slave-Holding States

it? Was it public policy to restrict it? Could the emancipator be allowed to endanger other property by emancipating his own? But could he not emancipate his own? He could sell it, exchange it, bequeath it, mortgage it, lend it, nourish it, starve it, and in some cases put it to death and not be indictable for homicide.

Obviously, in a slave-holding State a free negro was an anomaly. Public policy made his presence unlawful, and went as far as prudence dare to make it impossible. The question of emancipation was sure to come to the front whenever a slave-holding State should meet in convention to make a new constitution. But slight record remains of the debates on this question till after 1840, although as the half-century closed it was exhaustively discussed in Kentucky, in Maryland, and in Virginia. There the result of the discussion was inevitable. As slave property in a border state was insecure, public policy dictated that everything be done to make it safer. Should emancipation be permitted? Should the Legislature be forbidden by the constitution to allow the cessation of the relation of master and slave? Yet how could the restriction be imposed if a slave was lawful property? May a man not do as he wills with his own? The result of the struggle was a compromise, as in Virginia in 1850, which forbade the Legislature to emancipate slaves, but, at discretion, it could impose re

*

* Constitution, 1850, Art. iv., Secs. 20, 21.

strictions on the power of slave-owners to do so. Public opinion did the rest. This may be said to have been the attitude of slave-holding States towards the question of emancipation in the middle of the century.

In

Free negroes, at the opening of the century, were in much the same plight all over the country. New Hampshire excluded them from the militia by law,* and every other State, either by law or by the constitution. Massachusetts compelled them to report for militia duty, under heavy penalty, but assigned them to menial duties about the officers' quarters. Occasionally their natural love of music, and their capacity to produce it, found them a more favored service as drummers or trumpeters. 1788 Massachusetts forbade Africans to tarry in the State longer than two months, under penalty of hard labor. Exception was made for the citizens of Morocco, with whose Emperor a treaty existed, but none was ever known to immigrate to Massachusetts from that country. When the nineteenth century began, the act of 1703 was still in force in this State, requiring the emancipator of a slave to give fifty pounds security to the town treasurer, to prevent the enfranchised from becoming a public charge. In other States the amount varied, but the general character of this law remained.

On every side the free negro encountered degrading restrictions. His certificate of emancipation must be registered and his own copy be signed * Act of December 28, 1792. + Laws of 1699, p. 309. + March 26th.

The Penalties of Emancipation

Without the copy

by two justices of the peace.* he could not remain in the county, nor travel out of it, under penalty of fine, imprisonment, or, often, of being claimed or sold as a slave.† Registration of the certificate was, however, seldom required, for obvious reasons. The free negro, like the slave, was rarely able to read or write, and as his habits were not those of an intelligent white, he was not accustomed to the care of papers. His certificate was easily lost, or stolen and destroyed. Unable, then, to prove his emancipation, he was forced back into slavery. If his case reached a court of justice, he could not be a witness, for no negro or mulatto, free or slave, could give evidence in a case in which a white man was a party. Thus it followed that all over the country free negroes were constantly being seized as slaves.

Their migration early became the subject of cruel laws. If emancipated, they must leave the State within a prescribed time, usually not over three months. But whither could they go? Every man's hand was against them. If they went to another State, they would be arrested, examined, fined, imprisoned. On discharge, if caught within thirty days, they would be condemned to hard labor for life, or to be sold as slaves.§ Every State,

* New Jersey, act of 1838. Ohio, acts of January 5, 1804, and February 27, 1834. Illinois, act of March 30, 1819.

+ New Jersey, acts of 1838, Elmer's Digest; Georgia, December 26, 1835; Louisiana, March 16, 1842.

Acts of Ohio, January 25, 1807; Indiana, January 28, 1818; Maryland, December 31, 1801.

Kentucky, acts of February 14, 1846; March 24, 1851.

slave or free, objected to their coming.* If near slaves, the free negro might excite an insurrection; if among whites, it was said he was sure to become a vagrant and a criminal. Did not the reports of prisons and penitentiaries prove that more crimes were committed by negroes than by whites, in proportion to the numbers of the two races? Possibly, was the reply; but the negro is not wholly to blame. What can be expected of a people whom it is a penal offence to teach even to read? Throughout the broad land were tens of thousands of schoolhouses, yet no negro dare enter one, nor would any school dare to admit him, unless it be one kept by some fanatical Abolitionist. Very proper, all this; for the free negro for ages has proved his incapacity to learn. Point to one negro, in all history, who was a scholar or an artist, a painter or a poet. God intended him to serve others, and gave him a black skin to mark him and his descendants forever as the inferior race. Therefore,

* See acts of the following Legislatures concerning this subject: Ohio, act of January 25, 1807; excluded from the census by act of January 28, 1817. Illinois, act of March 30, 1819. The act of Delaware, January 25, 1811, forbade them to enter the State, subject to a fine of ten dollars a week for remaining, or to be imprisoned and sold. Acts of February 16, 1849, and March 5, 1851. Acts of Maryland, 1806; March 14, 1832; December, 1829. Acts of South Carolina, December 20, 1800; December 20, 1825; December 19, 1835; December 18, 1844. Acts of Kentucky, February 23, 1808; February 24, 1846; made a felony by act of March 24, 1851. Acts of Tennessee, December 16, 1831; December 21, 1851. Mississippi, acts of June 18, 1822; December 20, 1831; February 26, 1842. Arkansas, act of January 20, 1843. The qualifying act of Missouri, of January 7, 1825, and the excluding act of February 16, 1846.

Increase of Free Negroes

let the free negro-the worst of all negroes-go elsewhere; forbid his coming into this State, and, if he persists in coming, make an example of him. It is rather curious that debates of this kind were heard oftener and at greater length in the free States-as in New York, in 1821, when the constitutional convention was discussing whether to limit the suffrage to white men; in 1838, in Pennsylvania; again in New York in 1846; in Iowa in the same year; in Illinois and Wisconsin in 1848; and in Ohio in 1850. No Southern Legislature or convention before 1868 ever debated the extension of the suffrage to the negro, save Tennessee in 1834 and North Carolina in 1835, which discussed the abrogation of his right to vote under their first constitutions. It was bad enough to suffer an occasional case of emancipation. To a Southerner living before the war negro suffrage was fanaticism.

Yet the number of free negroes increased, and, strange to say, quite regularly. For every one in the country in 1790 (59,527)* there were two in 1800 (108,435), three in 1810 (186,446), four in 1820 (233,634), five in 1830 (319,599), six in 1840 (386,293), and seven in 1850 (434,495). This was a greater rate of increase than that of the white population, which, on the basis of the number in 1790 (3,172,006), was one and one-third in 1800 (4,306,446), one and two-thirds in 1810 (5,862,063), two and one-third in 1820 (7,862,166), three and one-third in 1830 (10,537,378), four and one-third

* These figures are taken from table i., ninth census, 17901870, pp. 4-6.