vision . Laws were even found necessary, in some of those colonies, to limit what was esteemed a superfluity of parental tenderness. In the Anglo-American colonies colored children were hardly less numerous But conventional decorum, more potent than law, forbade any recognition by the father. They followed the condition of the mother. They were born, and they remained slaves. European blood was thus constantly transferred into servile veins; and hence, among the slaves sold and bought to-day in our American markets, may be found the descendants of men distinguished in colonial and national annals. — Hildreth's History United States.
In Massachusetts a controversy arose as to the justice and legality of negro slavery, which was conducted by able writers. It began about 1766 and was continued until 1773, when the subject was very warmly agitated. In 1767 and afterwards, attempts were made in the legislature to restrict the further importation of slaves. It was even questioned whether, under the laws of Massachusetts, any person could be held as a slave. This point was carried before the superior court in a suit by a negro to recover wages from his alleged master. The negroes collected money among themselves to carry on the suit, and it terminated favorably. Other suits were instituted between that time and the revolution, and the juries invariably gave their verdict in favor of freedom. The pleas on the part of the masters were, that the negroes were purchased in open market, and bills of sale were produced in evidence; that the laws of the province recognized slavery as existing in it, by declaring that no person should manumit his slave without giving bond for his maintenance, &c. On the part of the blacks, it was pleaded that the royal charter expressly declared all persons born or residing in the province to be as free as the king's subjects in Great Britain; that, by the law of England, no subject could be deprived of his liberty but by the judgment of his peers; that the laws of the province respecting an evil, and attempting to mitigate or regulate it, did not authorize it; and on some occasions the plea was, that though the slavery of the parents were admitted, yet no disability of that kind could descend to the children.[1]
The view taken by the Massachusetts juries, was sanctioned about the same time in England by a solemn decision of the court of king's bench, in the celebrated case of James Somersett, mentioned in a former chapter. Being brought before Lord Mansfield on a writ of habeas corpus, his case was referred to the full court. After the argument, Lord Mansfield said: "In five or six cases of this nature, I have known it accommodated by agreement between the parties. On its first coming before me I strongly recommended it here. But if the parties will have it decided, we must give our opinion. Compassion will not on the one hand, nor inconvenience on the other, be to decide, but the law." "The question now is, whether any dominion, authority, or coercion can be exercised in this country on a slave according to the American laws. The difficulty of adopting the relation, without adopting it in all
- ↑ Belknap in Massachusetts Historical Collections.
