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ERROR to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The defendant in error, Edward Prigg, with Nathan S. Bemis, Jacob Forward and Stephen Lewis, Jr., were indicted by the grand jury of York county, Pennsylvania, for that, on the first day of April 1837, upon a certain negro woman, named Margaret Morgan, with force and violence, they made an assault, and with force and violence, feloniously did take and carry her away from the county of York, within the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, to the state of Maryland, with a design and intention there to sell and dispose of the said Margaret Morgan, as and for a slave and servant for life. Edward Prigg, one of the defendants, having been arraigned, pleaded not guilty. The cause was tried before the court of quarter sessions of York county, on the 22d day of May 1839; and the jury found the following special verdict:
'That at a session of the general assembly of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, holden at the city of Philadelphia, on the first day of March 1780, the following law was passed and enacted, to wit, 'An act for the gradual abolition of slavery:
§ 3. All persons, as well negroes and mulattoes, as others, who shall be born within this state, shall not be deemed and considered as servants for life or slaves; and all servitude for life, or slavery of children, in consequence of slavery of their mothers, in the case of all children born within this state, from and after the passing of this act as aforesaid, shall be and hereby is utterly taken away, extinguished and for ever abolished.
§ 4. Provided always, that every negro and mulatto child, born within this state, after the passing of this act as aforesaid (who would, in case this act had not been made, have been born a servant for years, or life, or a slave), shall be deemed to be, and shall be, by virtue of this act, the servant of such persons, or her or his assigns, who would, in such case, have been entitled to like relief, in case he or she shall be evilly treated by his or her master or mistress, and to like freedom dues and other privileges, as servants bound by indenture for four years are or may be entitled; unless the person to whom the service of any such child shall belong, shall abandon his or her claim to the same; in which case the overseers of the poor of the city, or township or district, respectively, where such child shall be so abandoned, shall, by indenture, bind out every child so abandoned, as an apprentice, for a time not exceeding the age hereinbefore limited for the service of such children.
§ 5. Every person who is, or shall be, the owner of any negro or mulatto slave or servants for life, or till the age of thirty-one years, now within this state, or his lawful attorney, shall, on or before the first day of November next, deliver or cause to be delivered in writing to the clerk of the peace of the county, or to the clerk of the court of sessions of the city of Philadelphia, in which he or she shall respectively inhabit, the name and sirname, and occupation or profession, of such owner, and the name of the county and township, district or ward wherein he or she resideth; and also the name and names of any such slave and slaves, and servant and servants for life, and till the age of thirty-one years, within this state, who shall be such on the said first day of November next, from all other persons; which particulars shall, by said clerk of the sessions and clerk of the said city court, be entered in books to be provided for that purpose by the said clerks; and no negro or mulatto now within this state shall, from and after the said first day of November, be deemed a slave or servant for life, or till the age of thirty-one years, unless his or her name shall be entered as aforesaid on such records, except such negro or mulatto slaves and servants as are hereinafter excepted; the said clerk to be entitled to a fee of two dollars for each slave or servant so entered as aforesaid, from the treasury of the county, to be sallowed to him in his accounts.