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1821.

THE FREE NEGRO IN MASSACHUSETTS.

197

The duty thus assigned was far from a pleasant one, and the report when made was a curious mixture of apologies for the appointment of the committee, and excuses for doing nothing. On the first of January, 1821, the black convicts in the State prison, the committee said, formed the one hundred and forty-sixth part of the black population of the State, while the white convicts were but the twenty-one hundred and fortieth part of the white population. This was reason enough for considering the expediency of suffering such a disorderly set of persons to remain in Massachusetts. But just what kind of legislation was needed the committee "found it impossible" to decide.

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No decision was needed, for there was then on the statutebooks of Massachusetts a law enacted in 1788,* and entitled an act for suppressing and punishing of rogues, vagabonds, common beggars, and other idle, disorderly, and lewd persons." It provided that no person "being an African or negro" should tarry within the Commonwealth for more than two months, unless he were a subject of the Emperor of Morocco or a citizen of one of the United States. It decreed that if he did, any justice of the peace on complaint must order him to depart within ten days, and, failing to go, must commit him to await the action of a Court of Sessions of the Peace, and it gave that Court power, should he be found guilty, to sentence him to be whipped ten stripes, to be again ordered to depart out of the Commonwealth, and to repeat the punishment as often as the offender failed to obey.

The committee having unearthed this old law, and supposing that it had never been enforced, cited it as an illustration of the folly of such legislation, condemned it as arbitrary in its principles, and in its operations repugnant to the institutions, feelings, and practices of the people of Massachusetts, and asked to be discharged from further consideration of the matter. In two respects the committee erred. In the first place, the law was not repugnant to the feelings of the people of Massachusetts, and remained on the statute-books till 1834.

* March 26, 1788. An account of the law is given in G. H. Moore's History of Slavery in Massachusetts, pp. 228–229.

In the second place, it had been enforced on at least one occasion, and enforced so vigorously that two hundred and thirtyseven blacks-negroes, mulattoes, and Indians-were ordered by name to leave the State.*

While the committee in Massachusetts was preparing their report, a convention was in session at Albany amending the constitution of the State of New York. Of all the many questions this revision made it necessary to discuss, the most serious was the franchise; for it was, in truth, for the purpose of removing the restrictions which then kept thousands of men from the polls that the convention had been called and the members elected. Yet here, again, the free negro was attacked and his rights as a voter were diminished. Under the old constitution, "every male inhabitant of full age" who owned a freehold worth twenty pounds, or paid a rent of forty shillings, and had been rated and paid taxes, was entitled to vote. In the new constitution it was now proposed to limit the franchise to "white male citizens."+ Blacks, it was said, are not fit to vote. They are too degraded to estimate the value or use with discretion so important a right. In their hands the ballot will always be at the service of the richest buyer. Grant them emancipation, grant them the protection of your laws and the free exercise of their religion, but put not into their hands a weapon wherewith to destroy you. What privilege have you ever conferred, what protection have you ever granted, that has not been abused by them? Look at the calendars of your courts, at your prisons, almshouses, bridewells, and penitentiaries, and see what a black host meets your eye. More than one third of the convicts are of your sable population. Public sentiment forbids their enfranchisement. If that sentiment should alter, if the time. ever comes when negroes are raised to the level of white men, are invited to your tables, sit in your pews, ride in your

* Massachusetts Mercury, September 16, 1800. See also Commercial Advertiser (New York city), September 20, 1800; Gazette of the United States, September 23, 1800, and Moore's Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts, pp. 231-236.

+ Debates and Proceedings of the Convention of the State of New York, held at the Capitol in the city of Albany, August, 1821, p. 99.

1822.

NEGRO PLOT IN CHARLESTON.

199

coaches, serve in the militia, and are summoned as jurors, then it will be in order to call a new convention, to frame a new constitution suitable to a new condition of society.*

Nothing which the friends of the negro could say availed anything, and when the constitution came from the convention it gave the franchise to every white male citizen who had been one year a resident of the State, had paid a tax, or had served on the militia, or had been a fireman in any city, town, or village, or, having lived three years in the State, had labored on the highways or paid an equivalent, but denied it to every "man of color" who had not been for three years a resident of the State and did not own a freehold worth two hundred and fifty dollars, above all debts and incumbrances, on which he had paid a tax within a year before the day of election.

But the heaviest of all restrictions was now imposed by South Carolina. Late one afternoon in May, 1822, a citizen of Charleston called on the intendant and stated that a favorite slave had confided information which led him to believe that the blacks were planning a revolt and insurrection. The corporation was instantly summoned, the slave sent for, and by his testimony an investigation was started which led step by step to the detection of a projected negro rising on a certain Sunday night in June. The arrest of one hundred and thirtyone blacks promptly followed. Thirty-five were executed, thirty-one were transported beyond the limits of the State or of the United States, † and with these energetic measures the meditated insurrection was stamped out in the very nick of time.

Those who hunted down the conspirators and brought them to the gallows attributed the plot to the influence of a free negro of uncommon ability, to religious fanaticism, and the secession of a large body of blacks from the white Methodist Church and the formation of an African Methodist Church,

* Debates and Proceedings of the Convention of the State of New York, August, 1821, pp. 101-106.

† An Account of the Late Intended Insurrection among a Portion of the Blacks of this City. Published by the authority of the Corporation of Charleston,

to the facilities for confederating afforded by the extreme indulgence with which masters in Charleston treated their slaves, and to the course which certain discussions had lately taken in Congress. For each of these a remedy was found immediately. The African Church, described as "a hotbed in which the germ [of insurrection] might well be expected to spring into life and vigor" was dissolved. was dissolved. Masters put a more careful watch on their slaves. The Corporation rigorously enforced the negro ordinance, and when the Legislature met a law was enacted especially directed against negroes from foreign parts. The testimony at the trials brought out the fact that efforts had again and again been made to secure aid from San Domingo, and that letters on the subject had been carried back and forth by negroes on the ships visiting Charleston. The new law, therefore, provided that the moment a vessel entered a port of South Carolina with a free negro or a person of color on board he should be seized. He might be serving as cook, steward, mariner, or in some other capacity, and have no intention of remaining in the State; he might be a subject of a foreign power; he might be a citizen of a free State; but it mattered not. The sheriff must board the vessel, drag the negro to the jail, and keep him there till the ship had cleared out and was ready to sail. Then the master must pay all costs of detention and carry the man away, or he would become liable to a fine of one thousand dollars or imprisonment for two months, and the negro would be sold as a slave.

Scarcely had the law been placed on the statute-books when a general seizure of negro cooks and sailors began, and in a little while forty-one ships in the harbor of Charleston alone were deprived of one or more hands. Indeed, from a British trader almost the entire crew was taken. The captains of the vessels at once applied for relief to the judge of the United States District Court, who urged them to seek redress in the courts of the State, and requested the district attorney to lend his aid. A test case was accordingly made up, a writ of habeas corpus, to inquire into the cause of the arrest of the men, was sued out, and, the sheriff having re

* An Account of the Late Intended Insurrection, etc., pp. 29, 30.

1823.

SOUTH CAROLINA NEGRO SEAMEN ACT.

201

turned that they were arrested under the law of 1822, a motion was made for a discharge on the ground that the law was unconstitutional. But the lower Court decided that it was constitutional; the upper Court, on appeal, was divided, and the prisoners remained in custody of the sheriff.* Ultimately they were released; but meantime the American captains addressed Congress, while such as were British subjects complained to Canning. He remonstrated vigorously,† and was assured by Adams that the practice should be put a stop to; yet it went on, and very soon another British subject— a negro seaman born in Jamaica-was in the clutches of the law.

This time suit was brought in the United States District Court for a writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, discharging the man from confinement absolutely; or, failing this, for a writ de homine replegiando, for his release on bail. The purpose was to try the validity of the law under which he was held. Council for the plaintiff argued that the act of 1822 was unconstitutional for two reasons: In the first place, it violated the sole power of Congress to regulate trade, because it interfered with the freedom of navigation and the employment of seamen, and drove from the ports of South Carolina all ships, foreign or domestic, with free negroes on board. In the second place, it violated the treaty with Great Britain, by which the right to engage in commerce with the United States was guaranteed to every British subject.

To this the defence made answer that a sovereign State has the right to interdict the entry of foreigners into her dominion; that South Carolina was a sovereign State prior to and at the time of her entrance into the Federal compact; that her sovereign right to exclude free negroes from other States was one she had not, and from the peculiar circumstances of her slave population could not, surrender to the Federal Gov

* The Memorial of Sundry Masters of Vessels lying in the Port of Charleston, South Carolina, to the House of Representatives is in the American Daily Advertiser, March 26, 1823; in Niles's Register, March 15, 1823, pp. 31, 32; Executive Papers, No. 76, Seventeenth Congress, Second Session, vol. v.

+ For Canning's note and Adams's reply, see Niles's Register, November 25

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