Seventy-six citizens of Clarke County write on behalf of Lewis, a free man of color, who by "honest industry has purchased his own freedom and that of his wife." They explain that since his freedom he has acted "with the same humbleness and propriety of deportment that made him a favorite while a slave, and "by industry he has accumulated property which he would be compelled to sacrifice if forced to emigrate suddenly." They ask the legislature to exempt him, at least for two years, from any law that might pass "requiring free negroes of this State to emigrate, or be sold into slavery."
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Repository: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Mississippi
