been commuted from that of death to that of imprisonment for life, &c.
If any slave shall happen to be slain for refusing to surrender him or herself, contrary to law, or in unlawfully resisting any officer or other person, who shall apprehend, or endeavor to apprehend, such slave or slaves, &c, such officer or other person so killing such slave as aforesaid, making resistance, shall be, and he is by this act, indemnified, from any prosecution for such killing aforesaid, &c.— Maryland Laws, act of 1751, chap xiv., §9.
And by the negro act of 1740, of South Carolina, it is declared:
If any slave, who shall be out of the house or plantation where such slave shall live, or shall be usually employed, or without some white person in company with such slave, shall refuse to submit to undergo the examination of any white person, it shall be lawful for such white person to pursue, apprehend, and moderately correct such slave; and if such slave shall assault and strike such white person, such slave may be lawfully killed!!—2 Brevard's Digest, 231.
MISSISSIPPI. Chapt. 92, Sec. 110.—Penalty for any slave or free colored person exercising the functions of a minister of the gospel, thirty-nine lashes; but any master may permit his slave to preach on his own premises, no slaves but his own being permitted to assemble.—Digest of Stat., p. 770.
Act of June 18, 1822, Sec. 21.—No negro or mulatto can be a witness in any case, except against negroes or mulattoes.—p. 749. New Code, 372.
Sec. 25.—Any master licensing his slave to go at large and trade as a freeman, shall forfeit fifty dollars to the state for the literary fund.
Penalty for teaching a slave to read, imprisonment one year. For using language having a tendency to promote discontent among free colored people, or insubordination among slaves,
