right to the specific thing,
affirm the sale, and recover the price or value, if it was not
paid to the slave.

3. A general permission to a slave to go at large and trade for
himself as a free man, is contrary to public policy, and a
violation of a penal statute. The owner or master of a slave
could maintain no action for any claim acquired by a slave while
acting under such illegal license.

4. But a slave may be permitted by his master to buy or sell
particular articles, and any form of consent or permission given
by the master, or his assent after the fact, will give validity
to the sale--though the purchaser may be liable to the penalty,
if the consent be not in writing.

5. A slave, being authorized by his master to sell any particular
thing, becomes the agent of his master for that purpose; and from
the authority to sell, an authority to transfer the property, and
to fix and receive the price must be inferred; but the slave
cannot exercise or receive an authority to maintain any action in
relation to it; the right of action for the price belongs to the
master, and if he sues, that fact itself is sufficient evidence
that he authorized or approved and confirmed the sale.

Unlike the more southerly States, Kentucky did not leave the slave
helpless in the courts. If a slave were charged with a capital crime
he was brought before the court of quarter sessions, which was
composed of the various county justices of the peace. They were to
constitute a court of oyer and terminer. But they alone were not to
decide the fate of the Negro, for the sheriff was required to empanel
a jury of twelve men from among the bystanders, who were to constitute
the trial jury. It was explicitly stated that legal evidence in such a
case would be the confession of the offender, the oath of one or more
credible witnesses, or such testimony of Negroes, mulattoes, or
Indians as should seem convincing to the court. When a slave was
called upon to testify in such a case, the court, the witness "not
being a Christian," found it necessary to administer the following
charge that he might be under the greater obligation to declare the
truth: "You are brought hither as a witness, and by the direction of
the law I am to tell you, before you give your evidence, that you must
tell the truth and nothing but the truth, and that if it be found
hereafte