Free Negro Law of Kentucky.
--The Free Negro law passed by the last General Assembly of Kentucky, and which goes into effect to-day, provides that hereafter no slave shall be emancipated unless ample security be given for the removal of such from the State within ninety days after the approval of the bond, breach of which covenant is to be followed by a suit against the bond for a sum not less than the value of the slave at the time when emancipated; that any free negro or mulatto entering Kentucky with the intention of remaining shall be deemed guilty of felony, and be imprisoned in the penitentiary for a period of not less than six years; that any free negro or mulatto not a resident of the State, entering it for any purpose whatever, shall likewise be deemed guilty of felony, and be imprisoned for not less than one nor more than five years; such convicts, after serving out one fourth their term of sentence, may be discharged upon giving good security to leave the Commonwealth within ten days; a return to the State after a discharge under the foregoing provisions is made punishable with imprisonment for life; free negroes or mulattoes who leave Kentucky to go to a non-slaveholding State, will be deemed to have forfeited their residence in the former, excepting those employed on board steamboats; that free negroes or mulattoes who shall keep a disorderly house, or be without the means of earning an honest support, shall, upon conviction for misdemeanor, be sold into servitude for not less than two nor more than ten years.
