In Athens, the female slave could demand protection from the magistrates; and if her complaints of insulting treatment were well founded, she could be sold to another master, who, in his turn, forfeited his claim by improper conduct.
Prop. 10.—The laws obstruct emancipation.
In nearly all slaveholding States, a slave emancipated by his master's will, may be seized and sold to satisfy any debt. In Louisiana, fraud of creditors is by law considered as proved, if it can be made to appear that the master, at the moment of executing the deed of enfranchisement, had not sufficient property to pay all his debts; and if after payment of debts, there be not personal estate enough to satisfy the widow's claim to one third, his slaves, though declared to be free by his last will, are nevertheless liable to be sold for the widow's portion.—In South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, a valid emancipation can only be gained by authority of the Legislature, expressly granted. A slave-owner cannot manumit his slaves without the formal consent
of the Legislature. "In Georgia, any attempt to free a slave in any other manner than the prescribed form, is punished by a fine of two hundred dollars for each offence; and the slave or slaves are still, to all intents and purposes, in a state of slavery." A new act was passed in that State in 1818, by which any person, who endeavors to enfranchise a slave by will, testament, contract, or stipulation, or who contrives indirectly to confer freedom by allowing his slaves to enjoy the profit of their labor and skill, incurs a penalty not exceeding one thousand dollars; and the slaves who have been the object of such benevolence, are ordered to be seized and sold at public outcry.
In North Carolina, "no slave is allowed to be set free, except for meritorious services, to be adjudged of and allowed by the county court, and license first had and obtained thereupon;" and any slave manumitted contrary to this regulation may be seized, put in jail, and sold to the highest bidder. In Mississippi all the above obstacles to emancipation are combined in one act.
In Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia, and Maryland, greater facilities are afforded to emancipation. An instrument in writing, signed by two witnesses, or acknowledged by the owner of the slave in open court, is sufficient; the court reserving the power to demand security for the maintenance of aged or infirm slaves. By the Virginia laws, an emancipated negro, more than twenty-one years old, is liable to be again reduced to slavery, if he remain in the State more than twelve months after his manumission.
In Louisiana, a slave cannot be emancipated, unless he is thirty years old and has behaved well at least four years preceding his freedom; except a slave who has saved the life of his master, his master's wife, or one of his children. It is necessary to make known to the judge the intention of conferring freedom, who may authorize it, after it has been advertised at the door of the court-house forty days, without exciting any opposition.
Stephens, in his history of West India slavery, supposes that the colonial codes of England are the only ones expressly framed to obstruct emancipation. He is mistaken;—the American republics share that distinction with their mother country. There are plenty of better things in England to imitate.
According to the Mosaic law, a Hebrew could not retain his
brother, whom he might buy as a servant, more than six years, against his consent, and in the seventh year he went out free for nothing. If he came by himself, he went out by himself; if he were married when he came, his wife went with him. Exodus xxi, Deut. xv, Jeremiah xxxiv. Besides this, Hebrew slaves were, without exception, restored to freedom by the Jubilee.—"Ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land, and unto all the inhabitants thereof." Leviticus xxv, 10.