Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Practical Treatise on the Law of Slavery
The court observed that the term mulatto, as used in this state, was vague, and signified, in general, a person of mixed white and negro blood, in whatever proportions it might be mingled. The various distinctions which have obtained in the French and Spanish American colonies has not been adopted in this state.
Harper J in delivering the opinion of the court, observed, that it seemed to be an error in the judge's charge to the jury, in stating, that a mulatto was the offspring of parents, one of whom was white, and the other black, and that he was disposed to think, that where the White blood predominated, the disqualifica tion ought not to attach. According to this instruction, we understand, that the child of a quadroon and a mulatto, according to the distinction in Louisiana, must be accounted white. Yet, I suppose, that even in Louisiana such a person would be called a mulatto It is certainly true, as laid down by the presiding judge, that every admixture of African blood with the European, or white, is not to be referred to the degraded class. It would be dan gerous and cruel to subject to this disqualification a person hearing all the features of a white, on account of some remote admixture of negro blood nor has the term mulatto, or person of color, I believe.
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