"Sec. 14. That an act respecting apprentices misused by their master or mistress should apply to such children. (See the statute cited in Rankin v. Lydia, 2, A. K. Marshall's Ky., 467; and in Jarrot v. Jarrot, 2, Gilman, 19.) This act was repealed in 1810."[48]
Under the first constitution of Indiana, adopted in 1816, Negroes were not debarred from the elective franchise. In Article i, Section 1, of the Bill of Rights, this remarkable language occurs: "That all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights," etc. But the very next year the primal rights of the Negro as a citizen were struck down by the following: "No negro, mulatto, or Indian shall be a witness, except in pleas of the State against negroes, mulattoes, or Indians, or in civil cases where negroes, mulattoes, or Indians alone shall be parties."[49]
In 1819 [March 22d], an execution law was passed by which the time of service of Negroes could be sold on execution against the master, in the same manner as personal estate. From the time of the sale, such Negroes or Mulattoes were compelled to serve the buyer until the expiration of the term of service.[50]
In 1831, an act regulating free Negroes and Mulattoes, servants and slaves, declared:
"Sec. 1. Negroes and mulattoes emigrating into the State shall give bond, etc.
"Sec. 2. In failure of this, such negro, etc., may be hired out and the proceeds applied to his benefit, or removed from the State under the poor law.
"Sec. 3. Penalty for committing such without authority.
"Sec. 4. Penalty for harboring such who have not given bond.
"Sec. 5. That the right of any persons to pass through this State, with his, her, or their negroes or mulattoes, servant or servants, when emigrating or travelling to any other State or territory or country, making no unnecessary delay, is hereby declared and secured."[51]
In 1851 the new constitution limited the right of franchise to "white male citizens of the United States." "No negro or mulatto shall have the right of suffrage."
"Art. xii., Sec. 1. The militia shall consist of all able-bodied white male persons, between, etc.
"Art. xiii., Sec. 1. No negro or mulatto shall come into, or settle in the State after the adoption of this Constitution.