The North Carolina Standard

Negroes Not Citizens. The Northern papers are commenting on a recent decision in Kentucky, by which a free negro was ordered to be sold for twelve months, for a violation of the law forbidding free negroes to reside in the State. A writer from Louisville, in allusion to the decision, says:

"Judge Bullock decided that the free negroes were not citizens of any State in the Union, in the sense the word citizen was used in the constitution of the United States. His opinion was delivered orally, and I can only give you the substance of it. He held, the negro was only a sojourner in the United States, and had no guaranties under the constitution; that he was not a party to the social compact, either of the State governments or of the government of the United States; that any State might drive the free negroes from their midst; that they were aliens and strangers in a strange land. The Judge was about two hours in delivering his opinion."

Before his opinion was delivered, I was of the opinion that "citizen," as used in the constitution of the United States, covered all classes and conditions of men who were born upon our soil, of free parents, and who were not aliens. But it seems that the negro born in the United States has no country.

The Southern States have always claimed the right to regulate the residence of free negroes within their jurisdiction, and we consider it an inherent right, of which they cannot be deprived. But it is not only in the slave States that this right has been claimed and exercised, as several of the free States have at different times, done the same thing. Illinois has gone even a step further, and deprived her Legislature of all control over the subject, by inserting a provision in her constitution, that prohibits all free negroes from coming in or settling in that State. We will venture to prophecy that other free States will ere many years follow the example.

If the free negroes are subject to restrictions in the slave States, which did not formerly exist, they have only to thank their abolition friends, whose proceedings have rendered it necessary that the Southern States should adopt these measures for self-defence and self-preservation.