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Joseph Wallingsford, Plaintiff in Error v. Sarah Ann Allen, for Herself and Children U.S. 583 (1836)

handle is hein.slavery/ussccases0104 and id is 1 raw text is: JANUARY TERM 1836. 583 JOSEPH WALLINGSFORD, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR V. SARAH ANN ALLEN, FOR HERSELF AND CHILDREN. A wife having separated herself from her husband, for ill-treatment by him, applied to the county court of Prince George, Maryland, for alimony, which was allowed to her, pendente lite. The husband gave the wife a female negro slave,.and some other property, in discharge of the 'alimony. She removed to Washington, hired out the slave, and afterwards, in consideration of a sum of money, and for other consi- derations, she manumitted, by deed, the slave, and her two infant children, the eldest not three years old. Some time after the agreement between the husband and wife, a final separation took place between them, by a verbal agreement; each to retain the property each had, and to be quits for ever, and the wife relinquished all further claim for alimony. After the death of the wife, the hus- band claimed the female and her children, as his slaves. Held, that they were free by virtue of the deed of manumission executed by the wife. This is a case where a transfer of property must be considered as having been made for a valuable consideration. It was given in lieu of alimony, decreed by a court of competent jurisdiction, pendente lite; and passed the property as fully to the wife, as if the husband had conveyed it to a third person for a valuable consideration. In regard to that property, the wife is to be considered as a feme sole; and her right to dispose of it followed as a matter ofcoure. Construction of the act of assembly of Maryland of 1796, '2 Maxey's Laws 360, rela- tive to the manumission of slaves. The terms of the Maryland act, and the policy of it, were meant to prevent the manu- mission of slaves, who, from infancy, age or decrepitude, would become burthen- some to the community at the time the deed of manumission should take effect: and to such as were aver the age, after which manumission is prohibited. But the slave manumitted must either be positively in the latter predicament, or be so de- crepid, if under the age of forty-five; and if neither one nor the other, and being in infancy, it must stand so unrelated to any other free person coloured or white, that it can have no claim, natural or artificial, to support from any one ; and must, therefore, be a charge upon the charity of the community, or a charge upon its poorlaws. It would be an unreasonable restraint upon the privileges of manumis- sion, as it is granted in this act, if it were interpreted to exclude the manumission of mother and an infant child, the former being of healthy constitution and able to maintain it, as of other children who, in the natural progress of human lifb would be able) in a few years, to maintain themselves by labour, and who would find in their adolescence, persons who would gladly maintain them for the services they could render. Agreements between husband and wife, during coverture, for the transfer from him of property directly to the latter, are undoubtedly void at law. Equity examines with great caution betbre it will confirm theni. But it does sustain them when a clear and satisfactory case is nade out, that the property is to be applied to the separate use of tLe wife ; where the consideration of the transfer is a separate interest of the wife, yielded up by her for the husband's benefit, or of their f-mily; or which has been appropriated by him to his uses ; where the husband is in a

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