supplemented to secure better enforcement.71 Railroads and steamboats carefully guarded against
transporting slaves, for by the law of 1839 the company would be liable for a penalty of five
hundred dollars for transporting any slave without the written permission of the slave's owner,
and in the event the slave escaped, the transportation company would also be liable to the owner
for the value of the slave.72 Maryland also sought to secure better cooperation from other states
in the return of fugitive slaves under the fugitive slave clause of the federal constitution.73 The
census figures from 1850 indicate there were 279 runaways in the previous year. At that rate, the
total number of slaves escaping in the first half of the nineteenth centure would not account for
more than one decade of natural population growth.74

Manumission was another factor in the decline of slavery. Most manumissions took place
in northern and western Maryland where slavery had never taken firm hold. The law required a
recorded deed of manumission or a will to make manumission effective, but the total number of
such documents is even less than the number of escaping slaves.75 hi order to free a slave, the
master had to grant freedom by a deed witnessed by two persons, acknowledged by a justice of
the peace and entered in the records of the county court.76 Freedom could be granted only by
masters who were able to pay their debts from other assets, and only to healthy slaves, capable of
supporting themselves, and under forty five years of age. The law on manumission by will
included the same restrictions to protect creditors and assure that the testator was not shifting the
burden of care for his slaves to the state.77 As a result, the passage of time between the writing of
a will and the testator's death created problems. The slaves the testator intended to free were
often beyond the legally allowable age when the testator died.78 Children could not be freed until
they reached an age sufficient to support themselves. If they were not old enough when the will
was probated, they could not become free under the will.79 In a number of cases, the will would
leave a slave to the testator's spouse for life and provide freedom thereafter. Any children bom to
the slave during this period would remain slaves unless otherwise provided in the will, even
though their parent was legally entitled to freedom after the period expired.80

One further possibility that might help explain the decline in Maryland's slave population
is that slaveowners allowed their slaves to go free and look for work elsewhere without
manumitting them. If there was not enough work on the plantation, the master might not make
any effort to keep track of the slave and the slave might then assume the mantle of freedom with
neither a document of manumission nor a record of escape. The existence of this practice is
reflected in various laws that attempt to limit it.81

B.        Prejudice Against Free Blacks

In the seventeenth century, the formal law moved from class and status based distinctions
to include purely racial distinctions. The laws of the eighteenth century extended the racial
distinctions that previously had been found only in statutes on misegenation. The eighteenth
century laws excluded the testimony of free negroes or mulattoes bom of white women during
their period of servitude in suits involving white Christians. The 1783 law barred persons freed
after that date from voting or testifying in freedom suits or against white persons. On the whole,

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