It has passed the first reading.
The bill provides that the President who shall
permit a free negro to travel on any road within
the jurisdiction of the State under his supervision
shall pay a fine of 500 dollars; any conductor
permitting a violation of the Act shall pay 250
dollars; provided such free negro is not under the
control of a free white citizen of Tennessee, who
will vouch for the character of said free negro
in a penal bond of one thousand dollars. The
State of Arkansas has passed a law to banish all
free negroes from its bounds, and it came into effect
on the 1st day of January, 1860. Every free negro
found there after that date will be liable to be sold
into slavery, the crime of freedom being unpardon-
able. The Missouri Senate has before it a bill
providing that all free negroes above the age of
eighteen years who shall be found in the State after
September, 1860, shall be sold into slavery; and
that all such negroes as shall enter the State after
September, 1861, and remain there twenty-four
hours, shall also be sold into slavery for ever. Mis-
sissippi, Kentucky, and Georgia, and in fact, I be-
lieve, all the slave States, are legislating in the same
manner. Thus the slaveholders make it almost im-
possible for free persons of colour to get out of the
slave States, in order that they may sell them into
slavery if they don't go. If no white persons travelled
upon railroads except those who could get some one
to vouch for their character in a penal bond of one
thousand dollars, the railroad companies would soon
go to the "wall.
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