[35] Judge Green held that “A slave is not in the condition of a horse or an ox. His liberty is restrained, it is true, and his owner controls his actions and claims his services. But he is made of the image of the Creator. He has mental capacities, and an immortal principle in his nature, that constitutes him equal to his owner but for the accidental position in which fortune has placed him. The owner has acquired conventional rights to him, but the laws under which he is held as a slave have not and can not extinguish his high-born nature nor deprive him of many rights which are inherent in man. Thus while he is a slave, he can make a contract for his freedom, and by the same will he can take personal or real estate.” Ford v. Ford, 7 Humphrey, 95-96 (1846). Cf. Miller v. Miller, 5 Heiskell, 734 (1871). [36] Stephenson v. Harrison, 3 Head, 733 (1859). [37] Wheeler, Op. Cit., 194. [38] Supra, 16. [39] Acts of 1794, Ch. 1, Sec. 32. [40] Acts of 1813, Ch. 135, Sec. 5. [41] Acts of 1839, Ch. 7, Sec. 1. [42] Wheeler, Op. Cit., 197. [43] Stephenson v. Harrison, 3 Head, 733 (1859). [44] Andrews v. Page, 3 Heiskell, 665 (1870). [45] Haitsell v. George, 3 Humphrey, 255 (1842). [46] Andrews v. Page, 3 Heiskell, 666 (1870). [47] Act of 1753, Ch. 6, Sec. 10. [48] M. & C., Secs. 2563-64. [49] Acts of 1825, Ch. 24, Sec. 2. [50] Ibid., Secs. 3-5. [51] Thomas, T. Ebenezer, Anti-Slavery Correspondence, 71. The letter reads as follows: “Has the anti-slavery cause injured the condition of the slaves? Surely not. In my late journey through Kentucky and Tennessee, I did not see one dirty, ragged negro. The squads of little negroes I used to see naked as the pigs and calves with which they gamboled in the same grove, were now clad like human beings in shirts and pants or slips, and many of them had straw hats, such as my own little boys put on; nor did I; see, as formerly, boys and girls waiting at the table, in a state of stark nudity.” “I was happy to acknowledge that a great change had taken place since I was conversant about Nashville, fifty-five years ago, when negroes were naked and ignorant. I said I was pleased to see so much attention paid to their bodies and their minds, and I wished that the people of Tennessee might go ahead of the people in Ohio in good offices to the negro. God speed you, dear friends, in this work.” [52] Loftin v. Espy, 4 Yerger, 92 (1833). [53] Wheeler, Op. Cit., 225; University v. Cambreling, 6 Yerger, 79 (1834); Craig v. Leiper, 2 Yerger, 193 (1828); Pinson and Hawkins v. Ivey, 1 Yerger, 303 (1830). [54] Acts of 1741, Ch. 24, Sec. 40; Acts of 1753, Ch. 6, Sec. 2. [55] Acts of 1831, Ch. 103, Sec. 3. [56] Acts of 1835, Ch. 57, Sec. 2. [57] James v. State, 9 Humphrey, 310 (1848). [58] Acts of 1813, Ch. 56, Sec. 1. [59] Acts of 1779, Ch. 11, Sec. 4. [60] Acts of 1787, Ch. 6, Sec. 1. [61] Acts of 1835, Ch. 58, Sec. 1. [62] Ibid., Ch. 65, Sec. 2. [63] Acts of 1799, Ch. 9, Sec. 2.