The weekly Anglo-African., 1860-01-14
JUSTICE CATRON ON THE QUESTION
OF ENSLAVING FREE NEGROES.

OF ENsLAvING FREE NEGROES.
A bill is pending before the Tennessee
Legislature, aimed against free negroes,
designing to either drive them from the
State, or enslave them. Justice Catron,
of the Supreme Court of the United States,
has written to the Nashville Union and
American the following letter, protesting
againt the passage of this infamous bill:
To the Editor Of the Union and american:
DEAR SIR:-I have for several weeks
past been anxiously waiting to hear what
the views of your leading journal were on
the bill pending before our Legislature,
proposing to enslave, or drive from the
State, the free colored population now
amongst us. 1t provides that these per-
sons shall be seized and sold, if found here
after the first day of Nay next, if they are
adults-and that the children shall be
bound out, &C.; the adults are allowed to
emigrate to Africa, in which case some
slight aid is to be furnished by the State,
to assist in their transportation; or, second
ly, they may seek a master and go into
slavery
Now, who are these people? There is
not one in one hundred of them, TO say the
least, that has ever been a slave. Usually,
their mothers, grandmothers, or great
grandmothers, were slaves, who were
emancipated by masters for meritOrious
services, or from benevolent motives, by
the courts of justice, and according to lew.
THey all hare rested right 10 freedom by
the judgments and DEGREES Of courts. Un-
der our Constitution OF 1896, the free col
ored men voted at the polls. That the old
Constitution extended to them, and pro-
tected their rights to certain extent, is
free from doubt But J pass by this ques-
ton.
Ny objection to the bill is, that 1t pro-
poses to commit an outrage, to perpetrate
an oppression and cruelty. This is the
plain truth, and it is idle to mince words
to soften the fact. Let us look the propo.
sition boldly in the face This depressed
and helpless portion of our population is
designed to be driven out, or to be enslaved
for life, and their property forfeited, as no
slave can hold property. The mothers are
to be sold, or driven away from their chill
dren, many of them infants. The children
are to be bound out until they are twenty
one years of age, and then to leave the
State or be sold; which means, that they
are to be made slaves for life, in fact
Now, of these women and children, there
is hardly one in ten that is of unmixed ne
gro blood. Some are half white; many
have halfwhite mothers, and white fathers,
making cast of 67t-100ths of white blood !;
many have third cross, in whom the negro
blood is almost extinct; such is the unfor-
tunate truth. This description of people
who were born free, and lived as free per-
sons, are to be introduced as slaves into
our families, or into our negro quarters,
there to be under an overseer, or they are
to be sold to the negro-trader and sent
South, there to be whipped by overseers-
and to preach rebellion in the negro quar-
ters-as they will preach rebellion every
where that they may be driven to by this
unjust law, whether it be amongst us here
/ III tflDESSSC, VI oOlili VI 40 OA IhC Sotloh
and sugar plantations, or in the Abolition
meetings in the free States. Nor will the
women be the least effective in preaching
crusade, when begging money in the
North to relieve their children, left behind
in this State, in bondage.
We are told that this "free-negro bill'
is polite, popular measure. Where is
it popular2 In what nook or corner Of
the State are the principles of humanity so
deplorably deficient, that majority of the
whole inhabitants would commit an out.
rage not committed in Christian country
of which history gives any account2 In
what country is it, this side of Africa, that
the majority have easlaved the minority
sold the weak to the strong, and applied
the proceeds of the sale to educate the
children Of the stronger side, as this bill
proposes? 1t is an open assertion thai
might makes right" 1t is re-opening the
African slave trade, in fact. In that trade
the strong capture the weak, and sell them
and so it will be here, if this policy is car
ried out