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Preamble
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WHEREAS, the courts in some of the non-slaveholding states
require the owners of fugitive slaves to prove that slavery ex-
ists in this state, and it is right to provide a convenient mode
of enabling such owners to procure a certified copy of a law,
proving that slavery exists by law in this state ; therefore,
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Slavery ex-
iats in this
state.
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Be it enacted, by the General Assembly of Maryland, That
negroes and mulattoes have been held in slavery in this state
as the property of their owners from the earliest settlement of
this state, and are, and may be hereafter held in slavery as the
property of their owners, and that every owner of such negro
or mulatto is entitled to the service and labour of such negro
or mulatto for the life of such negro or mulatto, except in cases
where such negro or mulatto can shew, that by the grant or
devise of the owner or some former owner of such negro or
mulatto, or his or her maternal ancestor, a shorter period of
service has been prescribed.
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