Benjamin Godwin represents that "an act was passed in the year 1814 granting him permission to remain in the state as a free person of colour, and that since the passage of that act he has purchased his daughter and only child Elizabeth Godwin whom he is anxious to emancipate." He further state that the laws of 1819 "concerning slaves, Free negroes & mulattoes, authorising county courts to extend to the children of such free negroes as have been permitted by the courts to remain in the state does not apply to the case of his daughter inasmuch as that section provides for the children only of those emancipated slaves who have been permitted by the county courts to remain." The petitioner therefore prays "your honorable body to pass an act extending the like permission (granted to himself) to his daughter."
Result: Reasonable.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
