Seventy-two "citizens and mechanics of the town of Fayetteville" complain about the "consequence of the competition of free negro mechanics." They therefore pray that a law be passed "requiring every free negro in the State, to register his or her name, and the names of their children, in the county clerk's office, every year, under heavy penalties; and that besides the poll tax, a capitation tax be levied, for the purpose of aiding to emigrate to Liberia, such free negroes as are willing to go." The petitioners also request "your honorable body not to pass any more special acts emancipating slaves; and also to take into serious consideration the propriety of furnishing aid from the State treasury, to such free negroes as desire to emigrate to Liberia, or some other country, and have not the means to do so." In closing, they "suggest to your honorable body the propriety of levying a separate tax on all investments in merchandise the manufacture of such non-slaveholding States as refuse to comply with the provisions of the fugitive slave law."
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Repository: North Carolina Department of Archives and History, Raleigh, North Carolina
