MISSOURI.—Laws, I.—Any master may commit to jail, there to remain, at his pleasure, any slave who refuses to obey him or his overseer.—p. 309.
Whether a slave claiming freedom may even commence a suit for it, may depend on the decision of a single judge.—Stroud's Sketch, p. 78, note which refers to Missouri laws, I., 404.
KENTUCKY.—Dig. of Stat., Act Feb. 8, 1798, Sec. 5.—No colored person may keep or carry gun, powder, shot, club or other weapon, on penalty of thirty-nine lashes, and forfeiting the weapon, which any person is authorized to take.
VIRGINIA.—Rev. Code.—Any emancipated slave remaining in the state more than a year, may be sold by the overseers of the poor, for the benefit of the literary fund!—Vol. i., p. 436.
Any slave or free colored person found at any school for teaching reading or writing, by day or night, may be whipped, at the discretion of a justice, not exceeding twenty lashes.—p. 424.
Suppl. Rev. Code.—Any white person assembling with slaves, for the purpose of teaching them to read or write, shall be fined, not less than 10 dollars, nor more than 100 dollars; or with free colored persons, shall be fined not more than fifty dollars, and imprisoned not more than two months.—p. 245.
By the revised code, seventy-one offences are punished with death when committed by slaves, and by nothing more than imprisonment when by the whites.—Stroud's Sketch, p. 107.
Rev. Code.—In the trial of slaves, the court consists of five justices without juries, even in capital cases.—I., p. 420.
MARYLAND.—Stat. Law, Sec. 8.—Any slave, for rambling in the night, or riding horses by day without leave, or running away, may be punished by whipping, cropping, or branding in the cheek, or otherwise, not rendering him unfit for labor.—p. 237.
Any slave convicted of petty treason, murder, or wilful burning of dwelling houses, may be sentenced to have the right hand cut off, to be hanged in the usual manner, the head severed from the body, the body divided into four quarters, and the head and quarters set up in the most public place in the country where such fact was committed!!—p. 190.