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As a pendant to this, take the following, which tells its own story, and needs no comment:

PROCLAMATION.-Whereas, Messrs. Hyde, Hodge & Co. of London, contractors with Her Britannic Majesty's government, to furnish laborers from the African coast for the West Indies, have sent some of their ships to the coast of the republic, offering an advance of ten dollars for every person who may be induced to emigrate; and whereas, the extinction of the slave trade has left large numbers of predial and other laborers in the possession of the chiefs and principal men of the country, while the offer of ten dollars each is nearly equivalent to the amount formerly paid for slaves, during the prevalence of the slave trade, and which operated mainly in producing and sustaining the wars, by which the country was distracted; and whereas, certain refractory chiefs are reported to have engaged with the agents of said Company to furnish a number of laborers, and are further known to have in concealment, near Grand Cape Mount, a number of the unhappy victims of their predatory excursions; and whereas, complaint has been made to the government that persons are held to be sent off without their voluntary consent, or the consent of their natural guardians; therefore, to prevent the abuses and evils which might otherwise result from the enterprise:

Be it known by this proclamation, to all whom it may concern, that the law regulating passports must be strictly observed—that vessels carrying or intending to carry away emigrants must come to this port with their emigrants on board, to obtain passports, in order that an opportunity may be presented to the government to ascertain whether the emigration be free or constrained. Every violation of the law regulating passports will be visited with the utmost penalty of the law in that case made and provided,

Done at Monrovia, this twenty-sixth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, and of the republic the fifth. J. J. ROBERTS. (L. S.) By the President, H. TEAGE, Secretary of State.

APPENDIX, D.

NEGRO COMMUNICANTS.

The Editor of the New York Observer, in an article introductory to Miss M'Intosh's letter, speaking of the descendants of the Highlanders and Germans, who were the first settlers of Georgia, says:

They inherit the religious principles of their fathers. They have the Bible and love to read it. They go to that blessed book, and not to Northern men or Englishmen, to Northern ladies or English ladies, to learn their duties to their slaves. They do not find in any part of that book the doctrine of the immediate abolitionists. They find

there that the slave is a man and a brother; that God made him; that God loves him; that Christ died for him; and that God will not bless, and Christ will not love, the master who does not love his slave, or the slave who does not love and obey his master. With this simple teaching, and withdrawing themselves, as the Apostle directs, from those who teach otherwise, they have been laboring quietly and unostentatiously, amidst all the discouragements caused by the curse of slavery on one side, and the agitations of abolitionists on the other, to establish schools and churches, and to fit the negro for the enjoyment of all the happiness of which he is capable here and hereafter; and with such success, that they and their co-laborers count, as one of the fruits of their toil, more than 300,000 negro members of evangelical churches-a greater number, as has been frequently stated, than the aggregate number in all the churches under Protestant missionaries in all the countries of the heathen world.”

APPENDIX, E.

EXTRACTS FROM THE STATUTES AND DECISIONS OF SOME OF THE SLAVE STATES.

1. Slaves are persons and not mere chattels. Devereaux's N. C. Reports, 4. 340. STATE VS. EDMOND, A SLAVE.-This was a trial for concealing a slave on board a vessel with intent to convey her out of the State and enable her to escape. On this charge the prisoner was convicted, but various exceptions being taken to the ruling of the Court below, it came up for a hearing before the Superior Court, where it was contended, amongst other things, that the prisoner, being a slave, was but a chattel, a thing, and not to be considered a person" within the meaning of the Act of Assembly. Decided by the Court that, "The prisoner, although a slave, is a person' in the natural acceptation of that term.” "A slave is a person capable of committing crime, and subject to punishment." I think the prisoner is a person, within the words and meaning of the Act of Assembly." (See also the passages in italics below in the next citation.) 2. Power of the Master over his slave:-Does not extend to life or limb.

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THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI VS. JONES. June T. 1820. Walker's Rep. 83. Per Cur. Clarke, J. "The question in this case, arising in arrest of judgment, transferred on doubts from Adams superior court, is, whether, in this State, murder can be committed on a slave. Because individuals may have been deprived of many of their rights by society, it does not follow, that they have been deprived of all their rights. In some respects, slaves may be considered as chattels, but in others, they are regarded as men. The law views them as capable of committing crimes. This can only be upon the principle, that they are men and rational beings. The Roman law has been much relied

on by the counsel of the defendant. That law was confined to the Roman Empire, giving the power of life and death over captives in war, as slaves, but it no more extended here, than the similar power given to parents over the lives of their children. Much stress has also been laid by the defendant's counsel, on the case cited from Taylor's Reports, decided in North Carolina; yet, in that case, two judges against one were of opinion, that killing a slave was murder. Judge Hall, who delivered the dissenting opinion in the above case, based his conclusions, as we conceive, upon erroneous principles, by considering the laws of Rome applicable here. His inference, also, that a person cannot be condemned capitally, because he may be liable in a civil action, is not sustained by reason or authority, but appears to us to be in direct opposition to both. At a very early period in Virginia, the power of life over slaves was given by statute; but Tucker observes, that as soon as these statutes were repealed, it was at once considered by their courts, that the killing of a slave might be murder. Commonwealth vs. Dolly Chapman; indictment for maliciously stabbing a slave under a statute. It has been determined in Virginia that slaves are persons. In the Constitution of the United States, slaves are expressly designated as "persons." In this State the legislature have considered slaves as reasonable and accountable beings, and it would be a stigma upon the character of the State, and a reproach to the administration of justice, if the life of a slave could be taken with impunity, or if he could be murdered in cold blood, without subjecting the offender to the highest penalty known to the criminal jurisprudence of the country. Has the slave no rights, because he is deprived of his freedom? He is still a human being, and possesses all those rights of which he is not deprived by the positive provisions of the law; but in vain shall we look for any law passed by the enlightened and philanthropic legislature of this State, giving even to the master, much less to a stranger, power over the life of a slave. Such a statute would be worthy the age of Draco or Caligula, and would be condemned by the unanimous voice of the people of this State, where cruelty to slaves, much less [more?] the taking away of life meets with universal reprobation. By the provisions of our law, a slave may commit murder, and be punished with death, why then is it not murder to kill a slave? Can a mere chattel commit murder, and be subject to punishment?

Villeins, in England, were more degraded than our slaves. It is true, that formerly the murder of a villein was not punished with death, but neither was the murder of a freeman, then so punished. The only difference between the freeman and the slave was in the magnitude of the fine. In England, killing a villein was as much murder as killing a lord. Yet villeins were then the most abject slaves, and could be bought and sold as chattels; but because slaves can be bought and sold, it does not follow that they can be deprived of life. The right of the master exists, not by force of the law of nature or nations, but by virtue only of the positive law of the state; and although that gives to the master the right to command the services of the slave, requiring the master to feed and clothe the slave from infancy till death, yet it gives the master no right to take the

life of the slave; and if the offence be not murder, it is not a crime, and subjects the offender to no punishment. The taking away the life of a reasonable creature, under the king's peace, with malice aforethought, express or implied, is murder at common law. Is not a slave a reasonable creature?-is he not a human being? And the meaning of this phrase, reasonable creature, is a human being. For the killing a lunatic, an idiot, or even a child unborn, is murder, as much as the killing a philosopher; and has not the slave as much reason as a lunatic, an idiot, or an unborn child? All are in the king's peace, except alien enemies flagrante bello. A distinction once existed in England, between the killing a Dane and a Saxon; but even in Coke's time, the killing any rational being was murder. Jews were then regarded in a light more odious than the most abject slave; yet to kill them was murder. So to kill one attainted, or an outlawed felon, or even an alien enemy, except in battle, might be murder. The term, "king's peace," means the place where the crime is committed, the actual venue, and not a particular class of human beings.

At one period of the Roman history, a history written in the blood of vanquished nations, slaves were regarded as captives, whose lives had been spared in battle, and the savage conqueror might take away the life of the captive, and therefore he might take away the life of the slave. But the civil law of Rome extirpated this barbarous privilege, and rendered the killing a slave a capital offence. When the northern barbarians overran Southern Europe, they had no laws but those of conquerors and conquered, victors and captives; yet, even by this savage people, no distinction was recognized between the killing, in cold blood, a slave or a freeman. And shall this court, in the nineteenth century, establish a principle too sanguinary for the code even of the Goths and Vandals, and extend to the whole community, the right to murder slaves with impunity?

The motion to arrest the judgment must be overruled.”

State vs. Reed, June T. 1823. 2 Hawk's N. C. Reports, 454. "This was an indictment for the murder of a slave, which concluded at common law. The prisoner was found guilty, and moved in arrest, because of the insufficiency of the indictment. The motion was overruled, and sentence passed, from which the prisoner appealed.

Henderson, J. This record presents the question, Is the killing of a slave, at this day, a statute or common law offence? And if a common law offence, what punishment is affixed to the act charged in this record? Homicide is the killing any reasonable creature. Murder is the killing any reasonable creature, within the protection of the law, with malice prepense, that is, with a design, and without excuse. That a slave is a reasonable creature, or more properly, a human being, is not, I suppose, denied. But it is said, that being property, he is not within the protection of the law, and, therefore, the law requires not the manner of his death; that the owner alone is interested, and the state no more concerned, independently of the acts of the legislature on that subject, than in the death of a horse. This is an argument, the force of which I cannot feel, and leads to consequences abhorrent to my nature: yet if it be the law of the land, it must be so

pronounced. I disclaim all rules or laws in investigating this question, but the common law of England, as brought to this country by our forefathers, when they emigrated hither, and as adopted by them, and as modified by various declarations of the legislature since, so as to justify the foregoing definition. If, therefore, a slave is a reasonable creature, within the protection of the law, the killing a slave with malice prepense, is murder by the common law. With the services and labors of the slave, the law has nothing to do; they are the master's, by the law; the government and control of them belong exclusively to him. Nor will the law interfere upon the ground that the State's rights, and not the master's, have been violated.

In establishing slavery, then, the law vested in the master the absolute and uncontrolled right to the services of the slave, and the means of enforcing these services, follow as necessary consequences; nor will the law weigh with the most scrupulous nicety his acts in relation thereto; but the life of a slave being noways necessary to be placed in the power of the owner for the full enjoyment of his services, the law takes care of that, and with me it has no weight, to show that by the laws of Ancient Rome or Modern Turkey, an absolute power is given to the master over the life of his slave. I answer, these are not the laws of our country, nor the model from which they were taken; it is abhorrent to the hearts of all those who have felt the influence of the mild precepts of Christianity; and if it is said, that no law is produced to show that such is the state of slavery in our land, I call on them to show the law by which the life of a slave is placed at the disposal of his master. In addition, I must say, that if it is not murder, it is no offence, not even a bare trespass. Nor do I think that anything should be drawn from the various acts of the legislature on the subject. Legislative exposition is good while the system of law thus expounded is in force; but when the whole system is abandoned, as is done by the act of 1817, exposition should be laid aside. But if the legislative exposition is to have weight, the last should be received, and the act last mentioned speaks the language of declaration, and not that of enactment. But it is not admitted that the acts prior to the act of 1817, are by any means a clear legislative declaration, that it was no offence to kill a slave anterior to any statutory provision. The first enactment that we have on the subject, is a simple declaration, that if any person shall maliciously kill a slave, he shall suffer imprisonment. From this we are not absolutely to conclude, that the legislature thought that before that time it was no offence; it is quite possible that juries had not applied the principles of the common law in their purity to the offence; for we see the spirit of the times by the legislative act; but that spirit is happily no more. I would mention as an additional argument, that if the contrary exposition of the law is correct, then the life of a slave is at the mercy

The same is true in other and very different relations in life. Parents and schoolmasters may correct a child: "but the correction must be moderate, and in a proper manner, and for the good of the child: but if the parent or master have not acted in great violation of justice and propriety, their conduct will not be weighed in golden scales." Bouvier, Institutes of American Law, vol. 3. p. 497, and marginal references.

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