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ties is extended over their respective limits as established by this

act.

Sec. 3. The jurisdiction of the orphans' court and courts of revenue, of these counties is to be extended over so much of their respective limits as now constitutes a part of the Creek nation, after March 1, 1830.

Sec. 4. Persons are to be appointed in each of those counties, for the purpose of taking a census of the Indian population, and of their slaves.

Sec. 5. This section provides for the compensation of the persons so appointed.

Sec. 6. Nothing in this act is to be construed to impose taxation or militia duty on the Indians, until the same be specially authorized by the State Legislature.'

Sec. 7. The sheriffs of said counties, for the service of any process in the Creek nation, are to 'be entitled to such compensation, as the presiding judge of the circuit court to which such process is returnable shall certify at the trial, is just and proper, and the same shall be taxed in the bill of costs."

Sec. 8. The secretary of state is required to furnish the agent of the Creek Indians, and each of our senators in congress with a copy of this act.' p. 65.

Salaries. By the act for defraying the expenses of the government, for the year 1829, the following appropriations are made; for the salary of the Governor, $2000; Secretary of State, Comptroller, and Treasurer, $1000 each; Judges of the Circuit Courts, $1750 each; Attorney General, $425; State Printer, $2500; State Architect, $1749. The sum of $2000 is appropriated as a contingent fund, subject to the governor's draught. p. 76.

Joint Resolutions. Amendment of the Constitution of the State. By this resolution an amendment of the constitution is proposed, providing that the judges of the several courts shall hold their offices for the term of six years; and for wilful neglect of duty, or other reasonable cause, which shall not be sufficient ground for impeachment, the Governor shall remove any of them, on the address of two thirds of each house of the General Assembly.' The cause of the removal to be stated at length in the address and entered on the journals of each house. But every judge, so intended to be removed, is to be heard in his defence, before any vote for such address shall pass; and the vote is to be taken by yeas and nays. p. 94.

Tariff. A joint resolution was passed relative to the tariff of 1828. This tariff is declared to be unjust, impolitic, unconstitutional, &c. It is resolved that the legitimate mode of opposition is by remonstrance, till argument is exhausted; that open resistance should be the last and desperate alternative between sub

mission and liberty; and the senators of the state in congress are instructed to record on the journals of that body a solemn protest against it, in the name of the state of Alabama.

p. 101. Joint Memorials. Joint memorials were adopted, addressed to congress, asking relief for the purchasers of public lands, an extension of the Circuit Court system of the Federal Judiciary to the Western and South Western States,' and a cession of the unappropriated land in Alabama to the state, for the purposes of internal improvement and education.

Private Acts.

Among the private acts we notice eleven acts of divorce; fourteen acts authorizing the emancipation of slaves, provided that the persons so emancipating them, enter into bonds that the slaves shall never become chargeable to the state, or any county, town, or city; three acts for the legitimation of certain persons; three acts for the restoration of the rights of citizenship to persons convicted of offences against the laws; an act to relieve a person from the disqualifications, created by the laws for the suppression of duelling, and providing that in all cases where it may be necessary for him to take the oath prescribed by the act passed January 7, 1826, amending the several acts against this crime, it 'shall be so administered as to permit him to swear that he has not violated any of the provisions of said act, since January 1, 1828;' an act authorizing a sum of money to be raised by a lottery, for the purpose of erecting a masonic hall, for the use of 'Rising Virtue Lodge, No. 4,' and providing that if prizes are not applied for, within ninety days after the drawing thereof, they shall be deemed donations to the Lodge; four acts incorporating trustees of Academies ; an act incorporating an agricultural society; an act incorporating The Montgomery Wharf and Steam Boat Company,' the stockholders of which are individually liable for the amount of their shares; and an act incorporating The Mobile Marine Railway and Insurance Company.'

INTELLIGENCE.

Rights of Slave Holders. We have seen an opinion of Judge Morris, of Indiana, with regard to the rights of an owner of slaves. The question arose on a habeas corpus, brought in Marion county, December 23, 1829, by the slaves of one Sewall. The return stated that the slaves belonged to Sewall, and were raised in Virginia, and by the laws of that state were held to labor to him; and that Sewall was emigrating from Virginia to Missouri, with his family and his slaves, and that his route led him through Indiana.

'It appeared from the evidence adduced, that about the 10th of this instant, (December, 1829) William Sewall, the claimant, with his family and the petitioners, came to the house of a Mr. Stoops in this county, and tarried a number of days on account of high waters. He uniformly stated, when interrogated upon that subject, that he had formerly resided in Virginia, and that he was on his way to the state of Illinois, where he intended to settle. He told one witness that he would not again reside in a slave state; and on being asked, said he did not know whether the black woman was going to live with him or not. He told another witness that he was going to settle in Illinois, and run his negroes into Missouri for the purpose of selling them.'

Other evidence was produced which also tended to show that Sewall's destination was Illinois. The following extracts from the opinion of Judge Morris, will show his decision and the grounds on which it rested.

"The third clause of sec. 2, art. 4, of the constitution of the United States provides that, "no person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." The 3d section of an act of Congress, approved February 12, 1793, provides, "That when a person held to labor in any of the United States or Territories, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of the said states or territories, the person to whom such labor or service may be due, his agent, or attorney is hereby empowered to seize such fugitive from labor and take him or her before any judge of the circuit or district courts of the United States, residing or being within the states, or before any magistrate of a country, city, or town corporate, wherein such arrest or seizure shall be made, and upon proof to the satisfaction of such

judge or magistrate, either by oral testimony or affidavits taken before and certified by a magistrate of any such state or territory, that the person so seized or arrested doth, under the laws of the state or territory from which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the person claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from labor to the state or territory from which he or she fled."

'Under these several rights the parties now before me are claiming, on the one hand, a certificate to authorize the removal of the petitioners, and on the other, to be discharged from custody.

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"The state tribunals are bound to take notice judicially of the several states wherein slavery is tolerated, because its existence is recognised by the constitution and laws of the United States; otherwise, the claimant of a fugitive from service would be required to produce an authenticated copy of the constitution, and also of the laws of his state, which authorize and regulate slavery. So also, as a necessary consequence, are courts bound to take notice in which of the states slavery is prohibited.

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"The claimant, in his return to the writ, says, that the petitioners were born and resided in the state of Virginia, and that by the laws of the said state "they were held to labor to the undersigned:" That about six weeks since he left Virginia with his family and slaves to emigrate to Missouri, and in passing through this state on his way he was casually detained, when his slaves left him. If the point of destination had not been fully proven to be Illinois instead of Missouri, (so far as such a fact could be proven by a man's uniform and repeated declarations,) the case would have presented a question more difficult as to principles, and more delicate when viewed as to its consequences, than the one now presented. The right of individuals, other than citizens of slave states to pass through our limits, and while sojourning among us to exercise rights which are denied to our own citizens, and which are incompatible with the fundamental principles of our government, is no where expressly or impliedly granted by the national compact. Our constitution has prohibited the existence of slavery within the state, in the strongest and most emphatic terms; and no one will question the right of its framers to make the prohibition. (See the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case of Polly v. Lasselle.) (a)

(a) In the above opinion no direct allusion was made to the ordinance of congress for the government of the North Western Territory, because it was thought that the adoption of our constitution, with provisions directly in accordance with the terms of the compact, superseded the necessity of recurring

"It is impossible to make a distinction between slavery in the state, and carrying a negro from place to place within the state against his will. Indeed slavery does not consist in any particular employment, but in any and every control of the person of the individual against his will.

The claimant has voluntarily relinquished his citizenship in Virginia, and brought his slaves with him, with the purpose and intention of settling in a free state; and in passing through this state with the petitioner, they have left him and asserted their natural rights. (a) In what character then, or by what right can he claim? He cannot as a citizen of Virginia, because he no longer sustains that character. He cannot claim them as having escaped from the state by the laws of which they owed service, because their leaving the state was his own act. It would be folly to say that he has brought himself within the exception in favor of the claimants of fugitives from labor.

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'I cannot conceive how the language of the above provision of the constitution of the United States can be tortured to secure the right of reclaiming, unless the slave has escaped from the state where he owes service, or from the possession of his master who is a citizen of such state. The act of congress above quoted, which may be said to be a congressional interpretation of that clause, abundantly sustains the view I have taken. The claimant is authorized to arrest only when the slave has escaped from the state where he owes service, into another state; he must prove that the fugitive owes service under the laws of the state from which he fled, and the certificate of a judge or magistrate can only authorize his removal back to the state from which he fled. to the compact itself. But it has since occurred to me that as the articles are declared to be a "compact between the original states and the people and states in the original territory, and forever to remain unalterable," they are the guaranty of our political rights; and that all persons are bound to take notice of its stipulations. The sixth article stipulates that "there shall be neither slavery or involuntary servitude, in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her service as aforesaid." The court of appeals of Kentucky (see 2 Marshall's Rep. 471,) say, "the words of the ordinance are extremely clear and forcible, "there shall be neither slavery or involuntary servitude,' a strong mode of expressing that every inhabitant shall be free. If then a slave could exist or reside in the territory, and be there a slave, the ordinance could not be true.'

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(a) It has been decided in Maryland and Kentucky, that when a man carries or sends his slave into a free state and there hires or employs him, the slave thereby acquires his freedom. In the case of negro David v. Porter, 4 Harris & M'Henry's Rep. 418, the owner hired the negro to a citizen of Pennsylvania. The negro afterwards returned to Maryland into the possession of the claimant ; and on petition, the general court decided that the hiring into Pennsylvania entitled the negro to his freedom. See also 1 Bibb. Rep. 425.'

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