efore, in
1801, there was enacted a law, giving power of emancipation to the
owner, as we have just seen before, but not to any slave who might
essay to deliver another from bondage.[23]

Once free, the Negro's status was rather precarious in some respects.
He was required to have papers filled out by the clerk of the county
in which he lived, specifying personal details and information
intended to identify the person thoroughly. He must without fail have
these emancipation records with him at any time and place in order to
prove his freedom. In 1831 a law was passed which made it obligatory
for the slave to leave upon his emancipation, and persons intending to
emancipate their slaves were then compelled to give bond for their
speedy removal.[24] Another clause of the same law stipulates that
free Negroes should not be allowed to enter the State.[25] Fine and
imprisonment were specified as penalties for remaining in the State as
long as twenty days. This was a reaction from the provisions of State
laws of 1825 when free colored persons immigrating into the State
might have papers of freedom registered there, when proof of their
absolute freedom had been made. Before the enactment of 1831, the
increase of free Negroes was not so actively discouraged by the State,
and many having their residence there, the laws concerning this class
were quite as important and nearly as well detailed as the provisions
of the slave code.

Among the early laws is one exacting a penalty of $500 fine for
selling a "free person of color."[26] A free person imported and sold
as a slave under the law might recover double the price of his sale
from the seller, who might be held until he should give bond.[27] This
marks a high degree of feeling of justice toward the freeman, and yet
it is worthy of notice that this was not always adequate to obtaining
actual justice. Record is given of three young colored men, seamen and
free, "carried to Mobile and New Orleans in the steamer _New Castle_
and taken ashore by the captain to the city prison on pretext of
getting hemp for the vessel, but really taken by the captain to the
city prison as his slaves and sold by the jailor to three persons who
carried them into Tennessee."[28] It is further stated that these
unfortunates remained in slavery. One, however, was freed by the
diligent work of the Friends, who had agents in the South busy
gathering information concerning slavery, and planning means of
com