“Judge Daggett.—This respected magistrate, we perceive, was not compelled, as we supposed, to sentence a Christian sister to an infamous punishment for the crime of teaching other Christian sisters the knowledge by which they could be qualified to do good to their class. The case was carried directly to the Court of Errors. The Hon. Judge, in giving his opinion in favor of the constitutionality of the “Black law” did not, as we learn by a private letter, commit himself to any opinion in favor of the law itself.

The question of constitutionality turned mainly upon this point, whether the persons affected by the law are citizens of the United States. The judge relied on the definition in Webster, that citizens are those who enjoy the elective franchise, and can hold real estate, and it has never been judicially decided that blacks can do this, or sue in the United States Courts. A writer in the “Unionist,” who seems to have examined the subject, shows that the right of suffrage may be exercised in New-Hampshire by male inhabitants; in Vt. by a man; in Mass. by male citizens; (under which term blacks have always voted, and one has held a seat as representative,) in R. I. by a subject; in N.Y. blacks of certain qualifications can vote; in Pa. every freeman, and the same in N.C. and Tenn. The constitutions of Md., Va. N.C. Ky. Ala. Miss. Mo. And Lou. limit the right of voting to free white citizens, which would be superfluous unless blacks may be citizens. The same number of the Unionist contains extracts from speeches delivered in the convention of New-York, 1821, by such men as Peter A. Jay, James Kent, Rufus King, Abraham Van Vechten, all maintaining expressly that people of color are citizens. Also a letter from De Witt Clinton to President Adams in 1826, claiming Gilbert Horton as ‘a citizen of this State,’ unlawfully imprisoned at Washington.”