Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1853-04-16
FREE NEGROES IN TIE DISTRICT.


better conduct of free negroes have long
been on the Corporation of Washington.
When John W. Maury, Esq, came into the
office of Mayor of the city, he Immediately
determined to see them all faithfully exc
cuted. The best interests of our citizens
demand that this course should be pursued,
and we doubt not that all the lovers of
order and good government will unite to
sustain his honor in his patriotic purpose
The Republic, in noticing recent trial,
gives the following statement of facts:
''In one case where the party was fined,
an appeal to the circuit court was taken by
the defendant, in order to test the poVer Of
the cooperation to enact and enforce such a
law.
The defendant below was Isaac N. Cary,
most respectable and orderly free man of
color, and he was fined by the justice of the
peace ten dollars, under the following pro-
vision of the 9Th section of the city ordi-
nance, of the 3lst May, 1927:
''No free black or mulatto person shall
be allowed to 60 at large through the city
of Washington, at a later hour than ten
o'clock at night, without a pass from a
justice of the peace, or respectable citi-
zen," &c., &c.
Cary was fined for being out after ten
o'clock at night without pass, &C., and
appealed. The case was very fully argued
before the court upon the law 1.-THE facts
being admitted) by Mr.. Carlisle for the
corporation, and Messrs. Lenox and Rat
cliffe for the appellant.
Subsequently, his honor Judge Dunlop
delivered the written opinion of the court
affirming the judgment, and the subject
being one in which the whole community
take deep interest, we lay before our
readers an abstract of the opinion of the
court.
Judge D. after stating the facts, and
quoting the ordinance of 1927, says:
'' The authority of the City Council to
pass this law is denied. The clauses of the
charter relied on as comforting the power
are found in the 9Th section of the charter
of Washington Of the 18th of May, 1920
The LIST clause is ito restrain and prohibit
the nightly and other disorderly meetings,
of slaves, free negroes, and mulattoes,' &C.;
and the I'd clause 'to prescribe the terms
and conditions upon which free negroes and
mulattoes may reside in the city
i" Under the first of these clauses it is
argued that the city corporation cannot re-
strain free negro from going out after ten
o'clock at might, in all cases. 1t is said,
the purpose may be entirely innocent-as
to call physician to his family, to extin-
guish a fire, sc. The argument supposes
that some unlawful or disorderly act, other
than being out after ten o'clock at night,
must be done, or meditatcd, and proved by
the corporation. 1t assumes that the power
can only be exerted to punish or prevent
some act or conduct unlawful in it's nature,
and against the common or statute law
This Interpretation would seem unreason-
able, because if the general law forbade the !
act, and furnished relief, the grant by Con-
gress to the corporation would be vain and |
useless, and a work of supererogation. The
very terms of the grant by Congress prove
that this construction cannot be true; the |
words are, ito restrain and prohibit nightly !
and other disorderly meeting of slaves, free
negroes, and mulattoes.'
"Here nightly meetings of free negroes
are assumed to be disorderly; they are SO |
and classed by Congress in
the very grant itself to the city. By the
general law-I mean our common and stat
ute law-the mere meeting or assembling
of free negroes at night would not, per Sc,
be unlawful. Assemblages of negroes, for
for religious worship. But church |
nightly meetings are, by the appellants |
conceded to be subject to prohibi-
ton by the corporation under this clause in
their charter, and in making that concession
it seems to me, the whole argument is
abandoned. If they can lawfully be pre-