not defeated at the polls, as he would have been during the greater part of the eighteenth century, simply because he is not a church-member. Is it not fair to conclude that the people of that time had no other equally good test? Or, at least, that they thought so? In 1705-and the law was re-enacted thirty-six years later in Delaware—a member of Assembly in Pennsylvania was required to profess faith in the Trinity and the inspiration of the Scriptures. It was proposed to incorporate the same oath in the constitution of the State in 1776, and to have it apply to the electors and all officials. Franklin, the president of the convention, succeeded in limiting the oath to members of Assembly and in modify. ing it merely to a declaration of belief in God, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and a future state of rewards and punishments. The change in public opinion respecting requirements of this kind is recorded in the constitution of the State, of 1790, in which the old provision barely survives in negative form, that no person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold office in the State. And this provision is repeated in the constitutions of 1838 and 1873. In 1704, the year before the Pennsylvania act, the South Carolina Assembly had passed one of stricter ecclesiastical tenure. Members of Assembly who, within twelve months, had not received the sacrament, were required to take it according to the Church of England; and, in Exclusion from Office for Religious Belief open Assembly, to deliver proper certificate to the fact, signed by the minister, or to prove the fact by two witnesses on oath. It is not strange that the first constitution of the State, seventy-two years later, should contain some survival of a public opinion that could dictate such a law. The New England States, New Jersey, and North Carolina, either by law or in their constitutions, limited officeholding to Protestants.* In North Carolina the qualification at last led to the calling of the convention of 1835 to modify the phrase. Jews were practically excluded from public office everywhere, and Roman Catholics also, except in New York and Maryland. These sects were not numerous in the country in the eighteenth century, but they existed in numbers sufficient to prove a powerful accessory to the political party that should first declare for reforms in the franchise. They were joined, of course, by that increasing number of non-church people who considered all religious qualifications a violation of human rights. In 1800 there were one hundred and eight thousand free persons of color, and eight hundred and ninety thousand slaves. The slaves counted as five hundred and thirty-five thousand persons in the apportionment of representation in Congress. The free negroes were in an anomalous condition, and were politically a people without a country. * By the constitution of 1780 the candidate for Governor of Massachusetts was required to be worth £1000 and "to declare himself to be of the Christian religion." The religious test was abolished in 1821, and the property qualification in 1892. In ten years their number had nearly doubled. Of their number, in the aggregate, during colonial times, there is no reliable record, but the record of their relations to society is ample and mournfully uniform. Negro emancipation had never been encouraged in the colonies. The young and the old could not be emancipated,* and, usually, he who set a negro free was required to give a heavy bond† to provide against his becoming a charge on the public.‡ The freedman was hedged about by limitations. His certificate of emancipation must be recorded, and without it he could not safely travel within the county in which he lived,† nor leave it save at peril of being sold into slavery.§ He could not be a witness against a white man. If he neg lected to work, he and his children could be bound out to labor.§ In Virginia, until the constitution of 1776, no negro could be set free unless for meritorious service, and then only with the consent of the Governor and Council. On training-days and at musters, the free negro, in Massachusetts** *Those sound, from twenty-one to forty years old; act of New Jersey, March 14, 1798. In Maryland, not if above fifty years of age; act of June 23, 1752. + New Jersey, act of March 14, 1798. Virginia, 1691; emancipator to pay for his transportation out of the colony. New Jersey, act xii., George I., 1725. Maryland, acts of June 8, 1717; December 31, 1796. ¶ In Virginia, in 1779, a negro, Kitt, obtained his liberty for discovering a gang of counterfeiters. The State bought him for £1000 and set him free. **Massachusetts, act of 1699; confirmed, May 28, 1707. Forerunners of Negro Emancipation * and Virginia alike, must appear, without weapons, and do whatever menial service was required of him. He might be allowed to serve as drummer or trumpeter, but usually he was found about the officers' quarters at servile labor. An act of the Virginia Assembly of 1777 emancipated a negro woman and her child whom one Barr had emancipated by will, with which the royal Governor had refused to concur; but the act concluded in the usual form-" not to be construed as a precedent." Every precaution was taken to prevent the social meeting of free negroes and slaves. North Carolina explicitly forbade it "on Sunday, or between sunset and sunrise."† For the first offence the penalty was twenty shillings, and twice the amount for every subsequent one. South Carolina and New York were in contrast in their dealing with the subject. New York was friendly to emancipation, provided proper bond was given; and in 1792 empowered the State treasurer to pay to the overseers of the poor in various towns money sufficient to support manumitted slaves who had become a public charge. Vermont was the first State to apply the doctrine of human equality to negroes, its law declaring, tersely, that "the idea of slavery is expressly and totally exploded from our free government."‡ The constitutions of the eighteenth century are silent respecting free persons of color. They were not included in the political estate. Virginia and Maryland had each twenty thousand; Pennsylvania, * Virginia, 1755. + North Carolina, 1727. fourteen thousand; New York, ten thousand; Delaware, eight thousand; Massachusetts and North Carolina, about seven thousand each; Connecticut, five thousand; New Jersey, four thousand; Rhode Island and South Carolina, each three thousand; Georgia, one thousand; New Hampshire, eight hundred; Kentucky, seven hundred; Vermont, five hundred; Tennessee, three hundred; about five hundred were living north of the Ohio; eight hundred in the district of Maine; and less than two hundred in what was soon to be known as Mississippi. Whether in New England, the Middle States, or the South, the free negro found every man's hand against him. In New Jersey and North Carolina the constitution did not forbid his voting, but public opinion was an unwritten constitution. He was an outcast; overlooked by the tax-gatherers, refused admission to the schools, denied entrance to the trades, dwelling on the thorny edge of village life, doctored by charity, watched by a slave-holding democracy, rejected from the society of the white race and forbidden to mingle freely with his own. Yet the function he served was a sort of political metaphor. How could slavery be the African's "natural and normal condition," and there be free persons of color? At the opening of the nineteenth century more than a hundred thousand persons were embodiments of the paradox. Would the time ever come when they would form a part of the political estate? If any commonwealth chose to admit them to citizenship, what effect would it have on interstate re |