## Facts

- Elijah Newsom, a free person of color, was indicted in Cumberland County for carrying a shotgun without a county-court license required by an 1840 North Carolina statute.
- The statute made it a misdemeanor for any free Black person, mulatto, or free person of color to carry or keep specified weapons unless licensed within the prior year by the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions.
- A jury found Newsom guilty.
- The trial court arrested judgment, ruling the statute unconstitutional.
- The State appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the 1840 firearms-licensing statute for free persons of color violated the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
2. Whether the statute violated the North Carolina Declaration of Rights provision recognizing a right to bear arms for the defense of the State.
3. Whether the statute created unconstitutional “exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges” under the North Carolina Declaration of Rights.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed the order arresting judgment.
- The court held the Second Amendment did not restrict state legislative power absent express constitutional text applying it to the states.
- The court held the statute did not violate the North Carolina Declaration of Rights because it was a permissible public-safety regulation and could treat free persons of color as a distinct legislative class.
- The case was remanded for entry of judgment on the guilty verdict.

## Legal Principles

- Federal constitutional limits in the Bill of Rights were not construed to bind state governments unless expressly stated (pre-incorporation doctrine).
- The state constitutional right to bear arms was construed as compatible with legislative regulation, including police-power measures directed at public safety.
- The legislature could enact “peculiar” policies applying to free persons of color as a separate class, so long as the laws did not transgress foundational principles of justice.
- A statute imposing restrictions on one class was not invalid as conferring “exclusive emoluments or privileges” on others merely because it differentiated among groups.

## Conclusion

The court upheld North Carolina’s firearms-licensing statute as applied to free persons of color, rejecting challenges under the Second Amendment and state constitutional provisions, and reinstated the guilty verdict by reversing the arrest of judgment.


State v. Newsom, 27 N.C. 250 (N.C. 1844)