There were only two ways by which a free negro could legally enter the state after 1831. This, of course, is barring special act of the legislature. If a free negro and a slave of another state were married, and the owner of the slave decided to move to Tennessee, he was permitted to bring the free negro along with the slave, by giving a bond of $500 to the county in which he chose to reside, guaranteeing that the free negro would keep the peace and would not become a charge to the county.[8] If a free negro of another state married a slave of Tennessee with the master’s consent, he was permitted to come into the state if the master of the slave would make bond to the county for his good conduct.[9] The state, however, reserved the right to order such free negroes to remove, if their conduct proved unsatisfactory. If they refused to do so, they were subject to the punishment provided by the Act of 1831.[10]
Emancipation was prohibited except on the express condition that such slave or slaves shall be immediately removed from the state.[11] The owner was required to give bond with good security in value equal to that of the emancipated slave, guaranteeing to send the negro out of the state and to provide sufficient funds to pay his transportation charges to Africa and support him for six months. Only age and disease exempted slaves from the operation of this act.[12]
Chief Justice Nicholson in discussing this change of policy said:
The policy of the state on the subject of emancipation was marked by great liberality until the year 1831, when the public mind began first to be agitated by discussions in the Northern states of the question of abolishing slavery.... A more rigid policy commenced in 1831, when it was enacted, that no slaves should be emancipated except upon the condition of removal from the State. This policy was based upon the belief that the peace of the State would be endangered by an increase of the number of free colored persons.[13]
Judge Catron said: “The policy of the act of 1831 is not to permit a free negro to come into the state from abroad; and secondly not to permit a slave, freed by our laws, to be manumitted upon any other condition than that of being forthwith transported from the state, to which, by the first section, he dare not return.”
He justified the restrictions on emancipation by saying it meant “adopting into the body politic a new member; a vastly important measure in every community, and especially in ours, where the majority of free men over twenty-one years of age govern the balance of the people together with themselves; where the free negro’s vote at the polls is as of high value as that of any man.... The highest act of sovereignty a government can perform is to adopt a new member, with all the privileges and duties of citizenship. To permit an individual to do this at pleasure would be wholly inadmissible.”[14]
Judge Catron said the reasons for the policy of exclusion were fear of rebellion among the slaves incited by free negroes, the immoral influence of free negroes among slaves, the injustice of forcing free negroes upon either the slave or free states, and, finally, justice to the negro. He said:
All the slaveholding states, it is believed, as well as many non-slaveholding, like ourselves, have adopted the policy of exclusion. The consequence is the free negro cannot find a home that promises even safety in the United States and assuredly none that promises comfort.[15]
Judge Nelson, speaking of this change in policy, said:
Before the unjust, unwarrantable, unconstitutional, and impertinent interference of enthusiasts and intermeddlers in other states with this domestic relation, rendered it necessary for the State to guard against the effect of their incendiary publications, and to tighten the bonds of slavery by defensive legislation, against persistent and untiring efforts to produce insurrection, the uniform course of decision in the State was shaped with a view to ameliorate the condition of the slave, and to protect him against the tyranny and cruelty of the master and other persons.[16]