[78] I Stat. U. S., 106; Scott, I, 439.
[79] This act states that the territory “for the purposes of temporary government, shall be one district, the inhabitants of which shall enjoy all privileges, benefits, and advantages set forth in the Ordinance of the late Congress for the government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio, and that the government of the said Territory shall be similar to that which is now exercised in the Territory northwest of the Ohio; except so far as it is otherwise provided in the conditions expressed in an Act of Congress of the present session, entitled, ‘An Act to Accept a Cession of Western Territory.’” Hurd, John Cadman, Law of Freedom and Bondage, II, 90.
[80] Acts of the Southwest Territory for 1794, Ch. I, Sec. 32. See also Scott, I, 471; and Meigs and Cooper’s Code of 1858, Secs. 3808-3809.
CHAPTER II
The Legal Status of the Slave in Tennessee
Tennessee inherited from North Carolina a liberal policy toward the slave, a policy which was fittingly expressed by Chief Justice Taylor in the following words:
It would be a subject of regret to every thinking person, if courts of Justice were restrained, by any austere rule of judicature, from keeping pace with the march of benignant policy and provident humanity, which for many years has characterized every legislative act relative to the protection of slaves, and which Christianity, by the mild diffusion of its light and influence, has contributed to promote.[1]
It will be seen throughout the study of the slave code that the slave in Tennessee enjoyed a privileged status, that he was more than a mere chattel, and that his disabilities, characteristic of slavery in many of the states, were considerably modified.