to pretend that the colonial
legislature had power, in 1753, to look back an hundred and thirty-three
years, and arbitrarily reduce to slavery all colored persons that had
been imported into, or born in the colony within that time. If they
could not do this, then it follows that all the colored persons in
Virginia, up to 1753, (only twenty-three years before the revolution,)
and all their descendants to the present time, were and are free; and
they cannot now be distinguished from the descendants of those
subsequently imported. Under the presumption--furnished by the
constitution of the United States--that all are free, few or no
exceptions could now be proved.

In North Carolina no general law at all was passed, prior to the
revolution, declaring who might be slaves,--(See Iredell's statutes,
revised by Martin.)

In South Carolina, the only statutes, prior to the revolution, that
attempted to designate the slaves, was passed in 1740--after slavery had
for a long time existed. And even this statute, in reality, defined
nothing; for the whole purport of it was, to declare that all negroes,
Indians, mulattoes and mestizoes, _except those who were then free_,
should be slaves. Inasmuch as no prior statute had ever been passed,
declaring who should be slaves, _all were legally free_; and therefore
all came within the exception in favor of free persons.[13]

The same law, in nearly the same words, was passed in Georgia, in 1770.

These were the only general statutes, under which slaves were held in
those four States, (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and
Georgia,) at the time of the revolution. They would all, for the reasons
given, have amounted to nothing, as a foundation for the slavery now
existing in those states, even if they had not been specially prohibited
by their charters.

[Footnote 9: "_Chastised._" An act passed in South Carolina in 1740,
authorized slaves to sue for their liberty, by a guardian appointed for
the purpose. The act then provides that if judgment be for the slave, he
shall be set free, and recover damages; "but in case judgment shall be
given for the defendant, (the master,) the said court is hereby fully
empowered to inflict such corporeal punishment, not extending to life or
limb, on the ward of the plaintiff, (the slave) as they in their
discretion shall see fit."

_Brevard's Digest, vol. 2, p. 130._

"_Baptised._" In 1712 South Carolina passed this act:

"Since charity and th