Free Negroes and mulattoes are by our constitution excluded from the right of suffrage,[6] and by consequence, I apprehend, from office too: they were formerly incapable of serving in the militia, except as drummers or pioneers, but now I presume they are enrolled in the lists of those that bear arms, though formerly punishable for presuming to appear at a muster-field [1723. c. 2.]. During the revolution war many of them were enlisted as soldiers in the regular army. Even slaves were not rejected from military service at that period, and such as served faithfully during the period of their enlistment, were emancipated by an act passed after the conclusion of the war [Oct. 1783. c. 3.]. An act of justice to which they were entitled upon every principle. All but housekeepers, and persons residing upon the frontiers are prohibited from keeping, or carrying any gun, powder, shot, club, or other weapon offensive or defensive [1748. c. 31. Edit. 1794.]: Resistance to a white person, in any case, was, formerly, and now, in any case, except a wanton assault on the Negroe or mulattoe, is punishable by whipping [Ib. c. 103.]. No Negroe or mulattoe can be a witness in any prosecution, or civil suit in which a white person is a party [1794. c. 141.]. Free Negroes together with slaves were formerly denied the benefit of clergy in cases where it was allowed to white persons; but they are now upon an equal footing as to the allowance of clergy, though not as to the consequence of that allowance, inasmuch as the court may superadd other corporal punishments to the burning in the hand usually inflicted upon white persons, in the like cases [1794. c. 103.]. Emancipated Negroes may be sold to pay the debts of their former master contracted before their emancipation; and they may be hired out to satisfy their taxes where no sufficient distress can be had. Their children are to be bound out apprentices by the overseers of the poor. Free Negroes have all the advantages in capital cases, which white men are entitled to, except a trial by a jury of their own complexion: and a slave suing for his freedom shall have the same privilege. Free Negroes residing, or employed to labour in any town must be registered; the same thing is required of such as go at large in any county. The penalty in both cases is a fine upon the person employing, or harbouring them, and imprisonment of the Negroe [1794. c. 163.]. The migration of free Negroes or mulattoes to this state is also prohibited; and those who do migrate hither may be sent back to the place from whence they came [1794. c. 164.]. Any person, not being a Negroe, having one-fourth or more Negroe blood in him is deemed a mulattoe. The law makes no other distinction between Negroes and mulattoes, whether slaves or freemen. These incapacities and disabilities are evidently the fruit of the third species of slavery, of which it remains to speak; or, rather, they are scions from the same common stock: which is,