duced that the slave has done some meritorious act for the benefit of his master, or rendered some distinguished service to the state; all which circumstances are but pre-requisites, and are of no efficacy until a special act of assenbly sanctions the emancipation; to which may be added, as has been already stated, a saving of the rights of creditors, and the protection of the widow's thirds.
The same pré-requisite of meritorious services, to be adjudged of and allowed by the county court," is exacted by an act of the General Assembly of North Carolina; and all slaves emancipated contrary to the provisions of this act are to be committed to the jail of the county, and at the next court held for that county are to be sold to the highest bidder.
But the law of North Carolina does not refuse opportunity for repentance, even after the crime has been proved: accordingly.
Shroud's Sketch,148. Hayward's
Manual, 525, 526, 529, 537.
The sheriff is directed, five days before the time
for the sale of the emancipated negro,
to give notice, in writing, to the person
by whom the emancipation was
made, to the end,
and with the hope that, smitten by remorse of conscience, and brought to a sense of his guilt before God and man,
such person may, if he thinks proper, renew his claim to the negro so emancipated by him; on failure to do which, the sale is to be made by the sheriff, and one-fifth part of the net proceeds is to become the property of the freeholder by whom the apprehension was made, and the remaining four-fifths are to be paid into the public treasury.
Shroud, pp.
148-154.
It is proper to add that we have given
examples of the laws of states whose
legislation on this subject has been most severe.
The laws of Virginia, Maryland,
Missouri, Kentucky and Louisiana,
are much less stringent.
A striking case, which shows how inexorably the law contends with the kind designs of the master, is on record in the reports of legal decisions in the State of Mississippi. The circumstances of the case have been thus briefly stated in the New York Evening Post, edited by Mr. William Cullen Bryant. They are a romance of themselves.
A man of the name of Elisha Brazealle, a planter in Jefferson County, Mississippi, was attacked with a loathsome disease. During his illness he was faithfully nursed by a mulatto slave, to whose assiduous attentions he felt that he owed his life. He was duly impressed by her devotion, and soon after his recovery took her to Ohio, and had her educated. She was very intelligent, and improved her advantages so rapidly that when he visited her again he determined to marry her. He executed a deed for her emancipation, and had it recorded both in the States of Ohio and Mississippi, and made her his wife.
Mr. Brazealle returned with her to Mississippi, and in process of time had a son. After a few years he sickened and died, leaving a will, in which, after reciting the deed of emancipation, he declared his intention to ratify it, and devised all his property to this lad, acknowledging him in the will to be such.
Some poor and distant relations in North Carolina, whom he did not know, and for whom he did not care, hearing of his death, came on to Mississippi, and claimed the property thus devised. They instituted a suit for its recovery, and the case (it is reported in Howard's Mississippi Reports, vol. ii., p. 837) came before Judge Sharkey, our new consul at Havana. He decided it, and in that decision declared the act of emancipation an offence against morality, and pernicious and detestable as an example. He set aside the will, gave the property of Brazealle to his distant relations, condemned Brazealle's son, and his wife, that son's mother, again to bondage, and made them the slaves of these North Carolina kinsmen, as part of the assets of the estate.
Chief Justice Sharkey, after narrating the circumstances of the case, declares the validity of the deed of emancipation to be the main question in the controversy. He then argues that, although according to principles of national comity "contracts are to be construed according to the laws of the country or state where they are made," yet these principles are not to be followed when they lead to conclusions in conflict with "the great and fundamental policy of the state." What this "great and fundamental policy" is, in Mississippi, may be gathered from the remainder of the decision, which, we give in full.
Let us apply these principles to the deed of emancipation. To give it validity would be, in the first place, a violation of the declared policy, and contrary to a positiye law of the state. The policy of a state is indicated by the general course of legislation on a given subject; and we find that free negroes are deemed offensive, because they are not permitted to emigrate to or remain in the state. They are allowed few privileges, and subject to heavy penalties for offences. They are required to leave the state within thirty days after notice, and in the mean time give security for good behavior; and those of them who can lawfully remain must register and carry with them their certificates, or they may be committal to jail. It would also violate a positive law, passed by the legislature, expressly to maintain this settled policy, and to prevent emancipation, No owner can emancipate his slave, but by a deed or will properly attested, or acknowledged in court, and proof to the legislature that such slave has performed some meritorious act for the benefit of the master, or some distinguished service for the state; and the deed or will can have no validity until ratified by special act of legislature. It is believed that this law and policy are too essentially important to the interests of our citizens to permit them to be evaded.
