An 1858 Maryland statute had required freed slaves to leave Maryland immediately upon gaining their liberty and this 1860 law banned the practice of manumission by deed or will completely. In keeping with the state's desire to reduce its free black population, the statute also contained a provision to allow free blacks to petition state courts to renounce freedom and choose masters. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Monroe N. Work, Negro Year Book, The Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1914-1915 (Tuskegee, AL: Negro Year Book Company, 1914), 125.