certain laws enacted by the latter in respect to the freedmen and their interests.

A brief summary of the laws alluded to, and which bore upon the rights and privileges of the freedmen as American citizens, is as follows: in North Carolina, in accordance with the laws recently enacted, the evidence of a colored person, now free, was received in the courts only in trials that were between colored persons. "In all other civil and criminal cases such evidence shall be deemed inadmissible, unless by consent of the parties of record." Laws bearing on the same point and similar in character were enacted in Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Alabama and Texas. Under such ruling how could trials be conducted impartially when a white person and a colored one were the contestants?

The term vagrant was found convenient for one special purpose. Several of these legislatures utilized it as a pretext for passing laws in respect to the children of freedmen. It was assumed, as a general rule, that colored parents would not support their own children, though in that climate. it required very little exertion. They were, however, graciously allowed to nurture them during infancy and until their labor might be worth something. The civil authorities were therefore enjoined to take the children of colored parents against whom this charge was made, and under the plea of vagrancy, apprentice them to white masters. Former owners, all things being equal, had the preference in securing these apprentices. The laws, as a general rule, were so drawn that interested persons could easily trump up that charge. In addition, civil officers were required to look out for such minors and report them to the courts, to which came plenty of white persons who were in readiness to avail themselves of the services of these children as apprentices. Such service was valuable. The males were to be apprenticed till they were twenty-one years of age, and the females till they were eighteen. The laws in respect to apprentices went much into detail, were very stringent, and even tyrannical. The wishes of parents were evidently little respected, either by the courts or by those who wished to obtain the control of these minor children, while colored fathers and mothers were indirectly charged with idleness and improvidence. Had these law-makers forgotten that these same fathers and mothers, of their own free will, had labored during the immediately preceding years of the war, and had not only supported themselves and their own children, but also their white mistresses and their children, while their masters and the elder sons of the family were in the Confederate army? This they had done without the aid of overseers, but of their own accord and good will toward their masters and mistresses. History records no instance of such

disinterested loyalty. Though they had heard of the proclamation of their freedom, yet they protected and supported these defenseless women and children and committed no outrages."*

The states of Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia and Louisiana adopted laws of this character; all were earnest to secure, and seemingly on their own terms, the services of the freedmen and their children. The code in relation to the freedmen adopted in South Carolina was so outrageous that Major-General Daniel E. Sickles, commander in the department, blotted it out by military order (January 17, 1866), and Provisional Governor Perry dissolved the convention of the same state as a revolutionary body, notwithstanding it had assembled under the President's "Instructions." Major-General A. H. Terry, at Richmond (January 24, 1866), issued an order forbidding the enforcement of the vagrant act passed by the Virginia legislature, on the ground of "unjust and wrongful combinations, having been entered into for the purpose of depressing the wages of the freedmen below the real value of their labor," saying: "The effect of the statute in question will be, therefore, to compel the freedmen, under punishment as criminals, to accept and labor for wages established by these combinations of employers. The ultimate effect will be to reduce the freedmen to a condition which will be slavery all but name." President Johnson himself, to whom an appeal was made, refused to interfere with this order.

The subject of education was ignored by all these legislatures except that of Florida, which made provision for the schooling of the freedmen's children, but the law, however," required a tax of one dollar to be levied on every male person of color between the ages of twenty-one and fifty-five, and a tuition fee to be collected from each colored pupil." Out of this fund they were to pay a superintendent and teachers; of course the latter were white. At the same time by law it was ordered that the "interest from the school fund of the state should be applied to the education of indigent white children."

Another remarkable feature of the legislation under review was that it often put hindrances in the way of the industrial progress of the freedmen. The laws already noticed infringed their rights as contestants in the civil courts, outraged their feelings and rights as parents, and depreciated their wages; and now we notice a series of laws whose influence trammeled them in making an honest living by engaging in ordinary business. For illustra

* Testimony of Senator Gordon of Georgia. Report of Committee of Congress on Outrages, Vol. VI., p. 334. These former owners and lawgivers appeared unable to recognize the love of colored parents for their own children, and passed these laws while seemingly unconscious of their injustice and inhumanity.

tion, in Mississippi the law would not "allow any freedman, free negro, or mulatto to rent or lease any lands or tenement, except in incorporate towns and cities, in which places the corporate authorities shall control the same." Again, if not employed, a colored person, male or female, must obtain a license from the mayor or police "authorizing him or her to do irregular and job work." In South Carolina the "law provided that no person of color shall pursue or practice the art, trade or business of an artisan, mechanic, shopkeeper, etc., on his own account and for his own benefit," without a license. The person of color for violating this law "was punished by fine or corporeal punishment." No mention is made of such license being required of the colored person if hired by a white man. The Louisiana legislature enacted (December 21, 1865) that all laborers should make contracts for the entire ensuing year, within the first ten days of the following month of January. These contracts were to be put in writing and read to the freedman, and he signed them by his mark in the presence of witnesses; they were made with the heads of families, and, as a general rule, embraced the labor of all the members of the family. The rules made by the employer were very strict. If the freedman went to work upon the terms proposed, well and good; but if he, as an American citizen, stood upon his presumed rights, and refused to work on such terms, he was declared a vagrant, for whose punishment ample provision was made in another section of the statute. To the casual reader these laws would imply that the employer was also bound to fulfill his part of the contract, and indeed he was to be fined quite severely if he did not. But in another section we find the following significant clause: "All difficulties arising between the employers and laborers under this section shall be settled, and all fines imposed by the former." To be sure the freedman, if dissatisfied, could appeal "to the nearest justice of the peace and two freeholders, citizens," one of whom chosen by himself, the other by the employer. It was provided, however, that "all the fines imposed and collected under this section shall be deducted from the wages due the laborer." Of course the freedman, on such conditions, would seldom appeal; he would accept the less of two evils.

If a freedman happened to be out of work he could be arrested as a vagrant, and become subject to the stringent laws bearing on such colored persons. The judges of the state were enjoined by law "to give this act" (the vagrant) "especlaily in charge of the grand juries at each jury term of their respective courts. In addition, the laborers or freedmen, under the charge of willful neglect, were held responsible for the injuries that might happen to the animals or to the implements used in the work; the

employer being the judge, had also the right to deduct the estimated amount of such damage from the wages due; or in other words, the freedmen, as laborers, were virtually held responsible for the wear and tear of the plantation. Upon the whole it would seem that at this time all the laws enacted in these states in respect to this subject, were so drawn that in some sections they read fairly, yet in others their interpretation could be invariably so construed as to discriminate against the interests of the freedman.

Laws, appropriate under the circumstances, were also enacted in all these states to regulate the domestic relations of the freedmen in respect to the legitimacy of children and of marriage. Some of the other laws had a flavor of the times of slavery; for instance, "impudence to his employer," "willful disobedience of orders," "using seditious language," "unlawfully assembling themselves together," "exercising the functions of a minister of the gospel without a license from some regularly organized church, vending spirituous or intoxicating drinks, or committing any other misdemeanor," were to be punished by fines and imprisonment. No freedman was permitted to have weapons of defense, such as knives or firearms, and was generally fined in twice the price of the arms that were taken from him. If a freedman who had been apprenticed, left his master, any person who "shall knowingly give or sell such deserting freedman any food, raiment or other things" could be punished by fine and imprisonment. "For all absence from home without leave the laborer will be fined at the rate of two dollars per day." (Condensed from Handbook of Politics for 1868, by McPherson, pp. 29–44).

It is difficult to discover provisions in these laws that protected the rights of the laborer equally with those of the employer, while it was ominous of additional evil to the former, that these law-makers seemed unconscious of the injustice and the inhumanity involved in these codes, which, though couched in different legal forms in the several states, all tended to the same end-that at as little expense as possible to utilize for the interest of the former master alone, the labor of the former slave, while at the same time keeping the latter in ignorance, and virtually crushing out his ambition to improve himself or his children. In this view these lawgivers were then sustained by the great majority of the former slave owners and what is strange, both these parties thought they themselves were in the right. This theory may serve partially to account for the imprudence of their legislatures in enacting laws of that character, when in anticipation of the speedy restoration of their states to the Union. Had these legislators been rendered so callous in respect to the negro by the influ

ence of slavery that they were unable to conceive why the people of the free-labor states might possibly look upon these laws with abhorrence, as being not only unjust but inhuman, and as designed, in extorting labor from the freedmen, to take the place of the former overseer and his lash? Neither did they seem to realize that they were thus crippling about one half their own citizens by taking from them nearly all the hope of reward. They even made no provision for educating this great laboring class, by which it would become the more effective in promoting the special industries of their own section. The modifications which were afterward made in these laws were the outgrowth of the principles involved in the measures introduced by Congress when adopting reconstruction.

Such is a brief summary of the laws already passed, and in process of framing, for they were all enacted within six months (from November 22, 1865, to May 25, 1866), that confronted the Thirty-ninth Congress at its first session. The members of these legislatures and the congressmen and senators elect fully expected that their states, in accordance with the President's "policy," would be at once restored to the Union. This belief may partially account for the haste in which the laws in relation to the freedmen were enacted; another motive had also much influence, that of enabling the former masters to utilize the labor of the freedmen in the planting season, now near at hand.

In the presence of these laws the freedman was almost helpless. What means could be devised to protect him in his rights as an American citizen? Congress was in a dilemma; the crisis was pressing and could not be ignored; a settlement of the difficulty must be made at once, and on terms so just as to last forever. That body had obtained from these laws an inkling of the animating spirit which almost universally pervaded the ruling minds in the late Confederate states in respect to the civil rights and political status of the freedmen. It required all the skill of statesmanship in the national legislature to inaugurate measures that would ward off the evils impending in the future. Congress therefore did not, as has been charged, legislate so as "to fix by enactment his (the freedman's) social rights," but so as to secure his political rights as a citizen, and wisely left his social status to take care of itself; the latter belongs to the intercourse between individuals and families in the community, and by no process can be made a creature of law. One result would be certain; that if these once slave-labor states should again take their places in the Union in accordance with the policy of restoration, the treatment of freedmen under state laws could be no more modified by the national government than were the state slavery codes before the recent war. The