an,
has the legal power to arrest, and question, in the most inquisitorial
and insulting manner, any coloured person, male or female, that he may
find at large, particularly at night and on Sundays, without a written
pass, signed by the master or some one in authority; or stamped free
papers, certifying that the person is the rightful owner of himself.

If the coloured person refuses to answer questions put to him, he may
be beaten, and his defending himself against this attack makes him an
outlaw, and if he be killed on the spot, the murderer will be exempted
from all blame; but after the coloured person has answered the
questions put to him, in a most humble and pointed manner, he may then
be taken to prison; and should it turn out, after further examination,
that he was caught where he had no permission or legal right to be, and
that he has not given what they term a satisfactory account of himself,
the master will have to pay a fine. On his refusing to do this, the
poor slave may be legally and severely flogged by public officers.
Should the prisoner prove to be a free man, he is most likely to be
both whipped and fined.

The great majority of slaveholders hate this class of persons with a
hatred that can only be equalled by the condemned spirits of the
infernal regions. They have no mercy upon, nor sympathy for, any negro
whom they cannot enslave. They say that God made the black man to be a
slave for the white, and act as though they really believed that all
free persons of colour are in open rebellion to a direct command from
heaven, and that they (the whites) are God's chosen agents to pour out
upon them unlimited vengeance. For instance, a Bill has been
introduced in the Tennessee Legislature to prevent free negroes from
travelling on the railroads in that State. It has passed the first
reading. The bill provides that the President who shall permit a free
negro to travel on any road within the jurisdiction of the State under
his supervision shall pay a fine of 500 dollars; any conductor
permitting a violation of the Act shall pay 250 dollars; provided such
free negro is not under the control of a free white citizen of
Tennessee, who will vouch for the character of said free negro in a
penal bond of one thousand dollars. The State of Arkansas has passed a
law to banish all free negroes from its bounds, and it came into effect
on the 1st day of January, 1860. Every free negro found there after
that date