The pending question was upon the
amendment submitted by Mr. BROWN, as fol-
lows :
Add to the end of the 40th section the
words: " But shall by law, at the expense of
the State, provide for the support and main-
tenance of such slaves so declared to be eman-
cipated as may be unable to support them-
selves,"
Mr. THOMAS. I had not proposed this
morning, Mr. President, to make any remarks
upon the proposition now before this Conven-
tion. And had it not been for some remarks
which fell from my friend from Anne Arundel
(Mr. Miller,) I would not now intrude upon
the Convention for the half hour which is now
allotted to members. But the gentleman in
his i remarks made use of some assertions which
sounded rather harshly tome as a lawyer,
and which it seems strange for him to make,
considering the ability which be has always
displayed in this Convention in the discussion
of every subject that has come before it, and
his known ability as a lawyer.
In the first place, the gentleman asserted,
in reply to my friend from Washington (Mr.
Negley,) that negro slavery was recognized
by the common law of England, end he did it
in such a manner as apparently carried con-
viction to his own mind, as it would be likely
to do to the mind (of every member of this
Convention who had not examined that ques
tion. Now the gentleman may believe what
he asserts to be true; and in the reading of the
common law of England, which he has given
to himself, he may have come to the conclu-
sion that shivery was recognized by that com-
mon law. But from the reading which I have
given of it, I must beg leave most humbly to
disagree with him. And I think I have as
many authorities, and stronger ones, to ad-
duce to show that negro slavery is not recog-
nized, as he can adduce to show that the com-
mon law of England ever did recognize prop-
erty in a negro slave. But that question
would not be important here, were it not for
the reasons which have been given by the
gentleman from Kent (Mr. Chambers) and
other gentlemen who oppose the adoption of
this section upon the ground that you cannot
take away property in slaves without compen-
sation, because you take private property for
public use.
Now, with the views which I shall submit
to this Convention, I deny, in the first place.
that a negro slave in Maryland is private
property in the sense of the Constitution of
the United States, and I say it upon my re-
sponsibility as a lawyer; I say it to go upon
the record, and however much gentlemen
may have been startled by what they called a
new idea mooted by my friend from Howard
(Mr. Sands,) that the only title that a slave
owner has to his negro slave is the title of a
thief, they may be still more startled when
they hear that the declaration made in article |
66 of the first volume of the code, is, in my
humble opinion, a falsehood that has been
upon the statute book of Maryland from the
time that article was first written until the
present day. What is that article?
"That negroes have been held in slavery
in this State as the property of their owners
from the earliest settlement thereof, and are
and may be hereafter held in slavery hereafter
as the property of their owners; and every
owner of such negro is entitled to his services
or labor for the life of such negro."
Now, what is property, but the interest
that a man may have in real estate, or in
chattels? Is a negro slave real estate? Is
a negro slave a chattel? I will confess
that after looking over the laws of some
of the Southern States, I find the negro
slave is rather an anomaly. Under the
laws of Louisiana, you find that he is real
estate. Under the laws of South Caro-
lina, Virginia and Missouri, he is personal
property. When you get to Kentucky, for
some purposes, he is real estate, and for other
purposes he is personal property. When you
come to Maryland, you will find that gentle-
men contend he is recognized here as personal
property. And you may go all over this
union in every slave State, and you will find
that slaveowners can hardly make up their
minds whether the negro is real estate like a
house or a piece of land; or whether he is
personal property like a pine board, an oak
plank, or a horse; or whether be is that
anomaly as in Kentucky, both real and per-
sonal property,
Our law in Maryland says that he is per-
sonal property. How do you get to that con-
clusion? It is founded solely and only upon
an act of assembly, passed in 1715, which
declares a slave, and the issue of that slave, to
belong to his owner for life. Now, what right
had the assembly of Maryland 1715, to
pass such a law? Does not the bill of rights
of our State, adopted in 1776, declare that
the inhabitants?not the citizens?the inhabi-
tants of Maryland, are entitled to the common
law of England? And what was the com-
mon law of England at the time of the adop-
tion of our first bill of rights? I assert that
the common law of England was that there
could not be property in a negro slave. I
hold in my hand the 9th volume of the
Georgia Reports, which ought to be good
authority with the gentleman from Anne
Arundel (Mr. Miller.) I refer him, in the
first place, to the case of Neal vs. Farmer, at
page 555, in which this whole doctrine is
discussed by the learned chief justice of South
Carolina at that time, Justice Nesbit, and in
which he announces this doctrine :
" I now consider the decisions of the Eng-
lish courts, upon the subject of slavery, and
I think it will beseen that slavery has never
been recognized to exist there, under the
common law. On the contrary, it is well |
