brought or imported into this State, by sea or land, from any place or places whatsoever, to be disposed of, left or sold, within this State."

1776, October. The charter of 1662 made the constitution of the State of Connecticut, and its sovereignty declared. Laws 1784, p. 1.

§ 223. LEGISLATION OF RHODE ISLAND.

The earliest legislation of a distinct colonial character, within the limits of the present State, is that of an Assembly consisting of the collective freemen of the various settlements or so called towns, then known as the "Providence Plantations ;" convened at Portsmouth, in Rhode Island, May 19, 20, 21; 1647. These "Acts and Orders" contain provisions in the nature of private law, though embodied with declarations of public law, or political constitution. Among these the following may be noted as particularly connected with the subject of this chapter :'

1 See Jackson v. Bulloch, 12 Conn. Rep. 42, for a judicial exposition of the history of slavery in the colony and State, also Reeves' Domestic Relations, 340.

2 In view of this, Mr. Bancroft, Hist. U. S. vol. i., p. 402, says, "but the people of Connecticut have found no reason to deviate essentially from the frame of government established by their fathers. No jurisdiction of the English monarch was recognized'; the laws of honest justice were the basis of their commonwealth, and therefore, its foundations were lasting." Considering the reputation of the earlier legislation of Connecticut as a restraint on the liberty of the subject, it may be well to refer the curious reader to the statutes of 1715, respecting the observation of the Lord's day and for the suppression of immorality and irreligion-p. 206 of the first edition of the State laws.

3 In the legislation above cited the charter granted by the Earl of Warwick, Lord High Admiral, and others, Commissioners under the authority of Parliament, March 14, 1643, was expressly referred to as a source of political power. This charter gave to the "inhabitants of the towns of Providence, Portsmouth and Newport, a free and absolute Charter of incorporation to be known by the name of the Incorporation of Providence Plantations, &c., together with full power and authority to rule themselves, and such others as shall hereafter inhabit, &c., by such a form of civil government, as by voluntary consent of all, or the greater part of them, they shall find most suitable, &c. Provided nevertheless that the said laws, &c., &c., be conformable to the laws of England, so far as the nature and Constitution of the place will admit." (Records of the Col. edited by J. R. Bartlett, 1856, vol. I. p. 143, 156.) But the persons who acted as the freemen, or who assumed to be these inhabitants, were those who as members of the several towns or settlements-Providence, Portsmouth, Newport, and Warwick,-had, in the name of the majority, declared themselves the "freemen or "free inhabitants." Those of the first-named three towns had, for some years before, exercised civil power in their several settlements. The inhabitants of Warwick, had not assumed such a power, which they contended was illegal: but, though not mentioned in the Charter, they appeared in the Assembly of 1647. (Rec

"It was ordered, upon the request of the Commissioners of the town of Providence, that their second instruction should be granted and established unto them, viz., 'We do voluntarily assent and are freely willing to receive and be governed by the laws of England, together with the way of the administration of them, so far as the nature and constitution of this plantation will admit, desiring, so far as may be possible, to hold a correspondence with the whole colony," &c. 1 R. I. Col. Rec. p. 147. Also under the title Touching Laws, in four heads, the first of which is,-"That no person in this colony shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised of his lands and liberties, or be exiled, or any otherwise molested or destroyed, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by some known law, and according to the letter of it, ratified and confirmed by the major part of the General Assembly, lawfully met and orderly managed." 1 R. I. Col. Records, 157.

Touching the Common Law, it being the common right among common men, and is profitable either to direct or correct all without exception; and it being true, which that great Doctor of the Gentiles once said, that the law is made or brought to light, not for a righteous man, who is a law unto himself, but for the lawless and disobedient in the general, but more particularly for murderers of fathers and mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, and those that defile themselves with mankind, for manstealers, for liars and perjured persons, unto which, upon the point may be reduced the common law of the realm of England,' the end of which is, as is propounded, to preserve every man safe in his own person, name and estate, we do agree to make or rather to bring such laws to light for the direction or correction of such lawless persons; and for their memory's sake to reduce them to these five general laws or heads," &c., &c. 1 Records, 158.

ords, vol. I. pp. 27, 45, 52, 87, 129; 2 Douglas' Summary, p. 80. Staples' Annals of Prov. p. 55.) This Assembly declared-"the form of government established in Providence Plantations is democratical; that is to say, a government held by the free and voluntary consent of all or the greater part of the free inhabitants." I Records,

156.

This definition may be attributed to the Antinomian doctrines of the great majority of the first settlers, 1 Douglas' Summary, p. 444, note.

Debts, &c. "But he [the debtor] shall not be sent to prison, there to lie languishing to no man's advantage; unless he refuse to appear or to stand to their order." 1 Records, 181.

Under Breach of Covenant it is enacted that servants shall not depart from service before the expiration of the time agreed, &c. 1 Records, 183.

1652. "Whereas, there is a common course practised amongst Englishmen to buy negers, to the end that they may have them for service or slaves forever; for the preventinge of such practices among us, let it be ordered, that no blacke mankind or white being forced by covenant bond or otherwise, to serve any man or his assighnes longer than ten yeares, or untill they come to bee twentie-four yeares of age, if they be taken in under fourteen, from the time of their cominge within the liberties of this collonie. And at the end or terme of ten years to set them free as the manner is with English servants. And that man that will not let them goe free, or shall sell them away elsewhere, to the end that they may bee enslaved to others for a long time, hee or they shall forfeit to the collonie forty pounds." 1 Records, 241, 243.

1675. "The legislature passed this order that 'no Indian in this Colony be a slave, but only to pay their debts, or for their bringing up, or custody they have received, or to perform covenant, as if they had been countrymen, not in war.' Some of the Indian captives were, however, in the great Indian war of 1675-6, sold by the Colony; not for life, however, but for a

Under the then existing form of government this act operated only in the towns of Providence and Warwick, by whose Commissioners it was enacted. According to a Report upon Abolition Petitions made by Elisha R. Potter, of Kingstown, in the R. I. Legislature, Jan. 1840, this is the first legislative notice of the subject. It never obtained the force of a general law. 1 Banc. 174. 1 Hildr. 373.

'This was under the Charter of Charles 2d, 1663, which declared that certain persons named, "and all such others as now are, or hereafter shall be admitted free of the Company and Society of our Colony of Providence Plantations, in the Narraganset Bay, in New England, shall be from time to time, and forever hereafter, a body corporate and politick, in fact and name, by the name of the Governor and Company of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations," &c., and provided for an assembly of deputies to be elected "by the major part of the Freemen of the respective places, towns, or places," &c., "such laws, &c., be not contrary and repugnant unto, but, as near as may be, agreeable to the laws of this our realm of England, considering the nature and constitution of the place and people there." 2 Hazard, 612.

term of years, according to their circumstances, and for their protection." 2 R. I. Col. Rec. 535, 549. Staples' An. Pr. 70.

1700. It was declared, "that in all actions, matters, causes and things whatsoever, where no particular law of the colony is made to determine the same, then in all such cases the laws of England shall be put in force to issue, determine and decide the same, any usage, custom or law to the contrary notwithstanding.", R. I. Col. Laws (Edit. 1744), p. 28. 1 Story's Comm. 64, cites p. 192.

1714. "We find an act passed to prevent slaves running away."

1715. “An act was passed, to prohibit the importation of Indian slaves into this colony. This act was continued in force and re-enacted in the digest of 1766. It states in the preamble that the increase of their number discourages the immigration of white laborers."

1728. "An act was passed requiring persons manumitting mulatto or negro slaves, to give security against their becoming a town charge." E. R. Potter's Report.

1750. An act was passed to prevent all persons from entertaining Indian, negro or mulatto servants or slaves, or trading with them. (See Rev. L. of 1798, p. 612.)

1770. An act for breaking up disorderly houses kept by free negroes and mulattoes, and for putting out such negroes and mulattoes to service. (See Rev. L. of 1798, p. 611.)

1774, June. “An act was passed, prohibiting the importation of negroes into this colony, the preamble of which we will quote ;-'whereas, the inhabitants of America are generally engaged in the preservation of their own rights and liberties, among which that of personal freedom must be considered as the greatest, and as those who are desirous of enjoying all the advantages of liberty themselves should be willing to extend personal liberty to others,' &c. By this act' all slaves,

'This act originated in a Providence town meeting, at which also it was resolved, "whereas Jacob Shoemaker, late of Providence, died intestate and hath left six negroes, four of whom are infants, and there being no heir to the said Jacob, in this town or colony, the said negroes have fallen to this town by law, provided no heir should

thereafter brought into the State were to be free except slaves of persons travelling through the State, or persons coming from other British colonies to reside here. Citizens of Rhode Island owning slaves, were forbidden to bring slaves into the colony, except they gave bond to carry them out again in a year. This exception was however expressly repealed in February, 1784. E. R. Potter's Report.

1776, May. The General Assembly repealed the Act for the more effectual securing to his Majesty the allegiance, &c. A virtual declaration of Independence. Staples' Annals of Prov. p. 252.1

§ 224. LEGISLATION OF NEW YORK.

Whatever local law affecting personal condition or status might have been derived from the Dutch government, within the limits afterwards included in the British province of New York, would, on general principles, have continued after the establishment of the English authority, until changed by positive enactment. The general principles on which the slavery of Africans and Indians was recognized in the other colonies, were equally recognized there under the law of Holland, which comprehended those doctrines derived from the civil law, which

appear: Therefore, It is voted by this meeting, that it is unbecoming to the character of freemen to enslave the said negroes, and they do hereby give up all claim of right or property in them the said negroes or either of them," &c., &c. See Staples' Annals of Providence; p. 237.

For the history of slavery in the N. E. colonies and States, see 2 vol. of Elliot's Hist. of New England.

The civil law was the common law of the Dutch empire.-1 Thompson's Hist. of Long Isl. p. 108. The treatise of Van Leeuwen, written in the latter part of the 17th century, transl. London, 1820, under the title, Comm. on Roman-Dutch Law, has always been received in the colonies settled by Holland. In this work, B. I. c. 5, s. 4, "with respect to persons, every one is free among us by their birth, and slavery is unknown among us and not in use, so that in order to protect natural liberty, slaves who are brought here from other countries are declared to be free as soon as they reach the limits of our countries, notwithstanding their masters." (Noting Christinæus, Gudelin, Grotius, Zypæ, &c., as cited in the next chapter.) Van Der Linden in Inst. of the Laws of Holland, pub. 1806, transl. by J. Henry, London, 1828, for use in the colonies, says, B. i. § 3, "The difference between freemen and slaves, which occupies so large a part of the Roman law, does not exist in our country, where all men are born free. Slavery is not in use in this country; nay, even the slaves who come here from the Indies become free (ipso facto) by their landing, provided they are not runaways or fugitives." But in the introductory part of the work the same author especially notices the Roman law of slavery and manumission as being applicable in the colonies.