The emancipation must be by an instrument in writing, a last will or deed &c., under seal, attested by at least two credible witnesses, or acknowledged in the court of the county or corporation where the emancipator resides; proof satisfactory to the General Assembly must be adduced 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 assembly 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 pre-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,
Stroud’s Sketch, 148. Haywood’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.
Stroud, 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.