Mississippi,
a valid emancipation can only be gained by authority of the Legislature,
expressly granted. A slave-owner _cannot_ manumit his slaves without the
formal consent of the Legislature. "In Georgia, any attempt to free a
slave in any other manner than the prescribed form, is punished by a
fine of two hundred dollars for each _offence_; and the slave or slaves
are still, to all intents and purposes, in a state of slavery." A new
act was passed in that State in 1818, by which any person, who endeavors
to enfranchise a slave by will, testament, contract, or stipulation,
or who contrives indirectly to confer freedom by allowing his slaves
to enjoy the profit of their labor and skill, incurs a penalty not
exceeding _one thousand dollars_; and the slaves who have been the
object of such benevolence, are ordered to be seized and sold at public
outcry.

In North Carolina, "no slave is allowed to be set free, except for
_meritorious services_, to be adjudged of and allowed by the county
court, and license first had and obtained thereupon;" and any slave
manumitted contrary to this regulation may be seized, put in jail, and
sold to the highest bidder. In Mississippi _all_ the above obstacles
to emancipation are combined in one act.

In Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia, and Maryland, greater facilities are
afforded to emancipation. An instrument in writing, signed by two
witnesses, or acknowledged by the owner of the slave in open court,
is sufficient; the court reserving the power to demand security for
the maintenance of aged or infirm slaves. By the Virginia laws, an
emancipated negro, more than twenty-one years old, is liable to be again
reduced to slavery, if he remain in the State more than twelve months
after his manumission.

In Louisiana, a slave cannot be emancipated, unless he is thirty years
old and has behaved well at least four years preceding his freedom;
except a slave who has saved the life of his master, his master's wife,
or one of his children. It is necessary to make known to the judge the
intention of conferring freedom, who may authorize it, after it has been
advertised at the door of the court-house forty days, without exciting
any opposition.

Stephens, in his history of West India slavery, supposes that the
colonial codes of England are the only ones expressly framed to obstruct
emancipation. He is mistaken;--the American _republics_ share that
distinction with their mother country. There are pl