They might, however, serve as witnesses against Negroes.[34] In the same way the free Negroes met discouragement in Illinois.

They suffered from all the disabilities imposed on their class in Ohio and Indiana and were denied the right to sue for their liberty in the courts.
When there arose many abolitionists who encouraged the coming of the fugitives from labor in the South, one element of the citizens of Illinois unwilling to accept this unusual influx of members of another race passed the drastic law of 1853 prohibiting the immigration.

It provided for the prosecution of any person bringing a Negro into the State and also for arresting and fining any Negro $50, should he appear there and remain longer than ten days.

If he proved to be unable to pay the fine, he could be sold to any person who could pay the cost of the trial.[35] In Michigan the situation was a little better but, with the waves of hostile legislation then sweeping over the new[36] commonwealths, Michigan was not allowed to constitute altogether an exception.

Some of this intense feeling found expression in the form of a law hostile to the Negro, this being the act of 1827, which provided for the registration of all free persons of color and for the exclusion from the territory of all blacks who could not produce a certificate to the effect that they were free.