ected,
and pay into court five dollars, for the use of the servant, and
thereupon let the court direct him to be hired by the overseers of the
poor for the succeeding year, in the manner before directed.

7. Let no Negroe or mulattoe be capable of taking, holding, or
exercising, any public office, freehold, franchise or privilege, or any
estate in lands or tenements, other than a lease not exceeding
twenty-one years.--Nor of keeping, or bearing arms,[28] unless
authorised so to do by some act of the general assembly, whose duration
shall be limitted to three years. Nor of contracting matrimony with any
other than a Negroe or mulattoe; nor be an attorney; nor be a juror; nor
a witness in any court of judicature, except against; or between Negroes
and mulattoes. Nor be an executor or administrator; nor capable of
making any will or testament; nor maintain any real action; nor be a
trustee of lands or tenements himself, nor any other person to be a
trustee to him or to his use.

8. Let all persons born after the passing of the act, be considered as
entitled to the same mode of trial in criminal cases, as free Negroes
and mulattoes are now entitled to.

[Footnote 28: See Spirit of Laws, 12-15.----1. Black Com. 417.]

The restrictions in this place may appear to favour strongly of
prejudice: whoever proposes any plan for the abolition of slavery, will
find that he must either encounter, or accommodate himself to
prejudice.--I have preferred the latter; not that I pretend to be wholly
exempt from it, but that I might avoid as many obstacles as possible to
the completion of so desirable a work, as the abolition of slavery.
Though I am opposed to the banishment of the Negroes, I wish not to
encourage their future residence among us. By denying them the most
valuable privileges which civil government affords, I wished to render
it their inclination and their interest to seek those privileges in some
other climate. There is an immense unsettled territory on this
continent[29] more congenial to their natural constitutions than ours,
where they may perhaps be received upon more favourable terms than we
can permit them to remain with us. Emigrating in small numbers, they
will be able to effect settlements more easily than in large numbers;
and without the expence or danger of numerous colonies. By releasing
them from the yoke of bondage, and enabling them to seek happiness
wherever they can hope to find it, we surely confer a be