Fifty-eight-year-old Daniel Webster, "a freeman of Colour now in the decline of life," represents that "while a Slave he connected himself with a mulatto woman as his wife by whom he has several children." Webster reports that he "lately purchased his said wife (whose name is Lucy) and being unwilling to hold in bondage one thus connected with him, and the mother of his children ... he is exceedingly solicitous to emancipate her." The petitioner fears, however, that the "Consequence of his wifes Emancipation" would result in being "turned out into another and Strange State where they are unknown" unless "your Honorable body will under the peculiar Circumstances of the Case relax the rigor of the law and permit his wife after her liberation to remain in her native Country." For this “indulgence, your Petitioner humbly prays.”
Result: Bill drawn.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
