Summary
In Allen v. Peden, 4 N.C. 442, it was distinctly decided, that an act of the Legislature emancipating a slave against the will of his owner, was plainly in violation of the fundamental law of the land, and so void. And in Robinson v. Barfield, 6 N.C. 391, that a deed of a married woman, not executed according to the existing law, did not pass the title to lands, notwithstanding an act of the Legislature passed after her death, enacted that it should be good and effectual for that purpose.
Summary of this case from Hoke v. HendersonOpinion
(July Term, 1816.)
An act of the Legislature emancipating slaves belonging to the estate of an intestate, without the consent of the administrator, is unconstitutional.
DETINUE for two mulatto children born of a negro woman slave, and reputed to be the children of Allen, who in his lifetime conveyed some property to each of them, and on the back of the deed expressed a desire that they should be emancipated. After the death of Allen administration with the will annexed was granted to the plaintiff, and the Legislature, without his consent, passed an act emancipating the children sued for.
The administrator in this case was in law the owner of the persons emancipated by the General Assembly. The act of emancipation passed not only without his consent, but against it. However laudable the motives which led to the act of emancipation, it is too plainly in violation of the fundamental law of the land to be sanctioned by judicial authority.
We are compelled to announce it a nullity, and to give judgment for the plaintiff.
Cited: Robinson v. Barfield, 6 N.C. 423; Allen v. Allen, 44 N.C. 62; Bryan v. Wadsworth, 18 N.C. 389; Hoke v. Henderson, 15 N.C. 16, 17; Wilson v. Jordan, 124 N.C. 715; R. R. v. Cherokee, 177 N.C. 97.