bating it.

The free person of color was exempted from military duty and from the
payment of a poll-tax. In accordance with an amendment to the Public
Works act of 1804, he was expected to give service on public roads and
highways just as other citizens.[29] It is doubtful whether any
freeman of color voted under the constitution of 1796, but it seems to
have been possible. The new constitution of 1834 restricted the right
of voting to "free men who should be competent witnesses against a
white man in a court of justice." In the courts free Negroes were
legal witnesses in certain cases among their own people, but might
themselves be testified against by slaves, even, if the defendants
were only freedmen.[30] Otherwise slaves were not allowed to be
witnesses against free men of color. Writs of error were granted to
both freemen and slaves.

There were numerous small observances regarding the personal conduct
of freemen. Life was at best for them a strange and circumscribed
affair. They were "neither bond nor free," and probably suffered more
from the provisions of the law and their ambiguous position than did
their slave brothers. The freeman was not to entertain any slave over
night in his home, or on the Sabbath. A small fine was the
penalty.[31] Intermarriage of free persons and slaves without consent
of the master of the slave was strictly forbidden. Breach of this law,
also, was punishable by fine. There were penalties for whites and free
Negroes alike for being in "unlawful assembly" with slaves. The word
"unlawful" here seems to have had a special judicial meaning,
signifying primarily for the purpose of instigating rebellion or
insurrection. A law providing for voluntary enslavement of a free
person of color, to any person whom he might choose, introduces a most
interesting situation which probably indicates that there were more
than a few free Negroes who preferred slavery to the condition of a
creature living in a sort of limbo between freedom and bondage.

By an act of the legislature in 1819, encouragement was given to
European immigrants to come into the State, with the idea that they
would become home builders and land-tillers, and make good citizens.
The colored population already had a general reputation for thrift,
but the sentiment of racial sympathy in the white population just then
favored more the immigrant. For a period the tide of public opinion
was on this side, and it was considered best for t