settled that the moment a slave, whether
African, Indian, Jew or Gentile, sets his foot
upon British soil, he is a freeman, and entitled
to the protection of the laws as such."
And you will find that he quotes numerous
authorities, to which my time will not. allow
me to refer.
Then if the gentleman will come back to
the decisions of our own Court of Appeals
and look at a case in 4 Harris and McHenry
he will find there that not only was there an
elaborate argument upon the part of distin-
guished lawyers of that day, among whom
was Mr. Ridgely, Luther Martin, and others,
laying down this same principle; but, taking
up negro slavery from the time it was first
established, and all other kinds of slavery
down to the time when those cases were
argued, which was in 1799, he will find that
Judge Chase, after reviewing the arguments
of the several counsel in that case, makes use
of this language.
"Every villein is by prescription or con-
fession in a court of record. Co. Litt. 117 b.
The last confession of villeinage extant is in
the 19 Hen. VI. (1441)— Lofft. 17, Lord
Mansfield's opinion. In the time of Edward
VI. (who was crowned in 1547) there was
not a villein in gross in England. 2 Blk. 96,
Charles was crowned in 1625—the charter of
Maryland was in the 8th Charles (1633.)
The laws relating to villeins do not respect this
case, nor can they have any influence in de-
ciding it, Joice, the ancestor of the peti-
tioner, was emancipated as soon as she was
brought to England, and her condition was
changed from that of slavery into servitude
for life; and when she was brought into Ma-
ryland by Lord Baltimore, she was only a
servant, and the laws concerning slaves did
not attach on her, and slavery was not re-
sumed by her coming here, and consequently
her issue are free. The numerous acts of
parliament respecting the African trade being
founded on policy, and having in view the
transportation of negroes from Africa to the
West Indies and the plantations, never con-
templated the bringing slaves to England;
and however inconsistent the parliament
might be in sanctioning and promoting that
inhuman and iniquitous commerce, and not
protecting and securing the rights and pro-
perty acquired under them in their fullest ex-
tent, they did not, they could not operate to
change the common law of England, and
to tolerate slavery in that country. In 2
Salkeld, 666, the decision by Lord Holt, chief
justice, is full in point. It is not a new dic-
tum, but a determination of the question be-
fore the court. Holt held, that as soon as a
negro comes into England, he becomes free.
One may be a villein in England, but not a
slave. He directed the counsel to amend the
declaration, and to declare that the negro
was in Virginia at the time of the sale; and
that by the laws of Virginia negroes were |
r saleable as chattels. If they had been con-
sidered as property and saleable by the laws
of England, the sale would have been valid if
made there. In 2 Salk. 667 (Smith vs. Gould)
per curium—men may be the owners, but
cannot be the subject of properly by the law
of England."
Now, I consider that these two authorities,
if there were no others) both of them the
authorities of slave States, one an authority
from perhaps the most thorough-going slave
State now in rebellion against the govern-
ment of the United States, deciding that the
common law of England did not recognize
property in a negro slave, and the other the
Court of Appeals of our own State I con-
sider these two authorities as amply sufficient
to dispose of this whole question.
And suppose them to be true, what do they
mean? They mean just exactly this; that
when Lord Baltimore received his charter
from king Charles II, this remarkable passage
occurred in that charter; the charter is found
in the second volume of Bozman's History of
Maryland, at page 41. That charter gives
Lord Baltimore power to make laws and or-
dinances for the government of the province,
and in the concluding part of the paragraph
it says:
" Which ordinances we will to be inviola-
bly observed within the said province, under
the pains to be expressed in the same, so that
the said ordinances be consonant to reason,
and be not repugnant nor contrary, but (so
far as conveniently may be done) agreeable to
the laws, statutes, or rights of our kingdom
of England; and so that the same ordinances
do not, in any sort, extend to oblige, bind,
charge, or take away the right or interest of
any person or persons, of or in member, free-
bold, goods or chattels."
That was the charter given by king Charles
II to Lord Baltimore, when he settled Mary-
land. He carried with him the common law
of England; and that common law declared
that no slave could exist under it. And when
the province of Maryland, in 1715, passed a
law reducing a human being to slavery, that
not only violated divine law, and human law,
and national law, but it violated the common
law of England, and the express terms of the
grant made in the charter given by king
Charles II to Lord Baltimore, if that be
true, then I say that from 1715 down to the
present time, the slaveholders of Maryland
have banded themselves together under a
false law tor the purpose of keeping the negro
race in bondage, and depriving them not only
of their liberty, but of that property which
they bad in themselves, and which nature's
God gave them. That right of property
which existed in themselves at the time of
their creation, at the time when God Al-
mighty made all men equally free, was taken
from them by the slaveholders of Mary land in
1715 against the common law of England, |
