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CHAPTER LII.

A RECONSTRUCTED STATE.

It seemed impossible for the people of Mississippi · and the same may be said of the Southern people generally-to understand the first principle of the free-labor system. Their notions of it were derived from what they had seen of the shiftless poor whites about them, demoralized by an institution that rendered labor disreputable. They could not conceive of a man devoting himself voluntarily to hard manual toil, such as they had never seen performed except under the lash. Some compulsory system seemed to them indispensable. Hence the new black codes passed by the reconstructed legislatures of several States.

Mississippi, like South Carolina, on returning to the fold of the Union, from which those innocent lambs had strayed, made haste to pass apprentice laws, vagrant laws, and laws relating to contracts and labor, designed to bring back the freedmen under the planters' control. "An Act to regulate the Relation of Master and Apprentice," passed in November, 1865, provides that “all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes, under the age of eighteen, who are orphans," or are not maintained by their parents, shall be apprenticed "to some competent and suitable person," the former owner to "have the preference;" that "the said apprentices shall be bound by indenture, in the case of males until they are twenty-one years old, and in case of females until they are eighteen years old"; that said master or mistress shall have power to inflict "moderate corporal chastisement"; that in case the apprentice leaves them without their consent, he may be committed to jail, and "punished as provided for the punishment of hired freedmen, as may be from time to time provided for by law,” —

the meaning of which is clear, although the grammatical construction is muddy; and that any person who shall employ, feed, or clothe an apprentice who has deserted his master, "shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor," and so forth.

It will be seen that, by this act, (approved November 22d, 1865,) not merely children without means of support may be thus bound out under a modified system of slavery, but that young girls, and lads of from fourteen to eighteen, capable not only of supporting themselves, but of earning perhaps the wages of a man or woman, may be taken from the employment of their choice and compelled to serve without wages the master or mistress assigned them by the court.

"An Act to amend the Vagrant Laws of the State" provides that "all freedmen over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business," (as if no man was ever honestly without employment,)" or found unlawfully assembling themselves together either in the day or night time, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in the sum of not exceeding fifty dollars, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court not exceeding ten days"; provided, however, that in case any freedman "shall fail for five days after the imposition of said fine to pay the same, that it shall be, and is hereby, made the duty of the sheriff of the proper county to hire out said freedman to any person who will for the shortest period of service pay said fine or forfeiture and all costs."

A bill "To confer Civil Rights on Freedmen, and for other Purposes," enacts "That all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes may sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded in all the courts of law and equity of this State, and may acquire personal property and choses in action, by descent or purchase, and may dispose of the same, in the same manner, and to the same extent that white persons may: Provided that the provisions of this section shall not be so construed as to allow any freedman, free negro, or mulatto to rent or lease any lands or tenements, except in incorporated towns and cities.'

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Not to speak of the gross injustice of this last provision, what shall be said of the wisdom of that legislation which prohibits an entire laboring class from acquiring real estate in the country, where their presence and energies are indispensable, and holds out an inducement for them to flock to the towns, which are crowded with them already, but where alone they can hope to become freeholders?

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Another section of this bill enacts that freedmen shall be competent witnesses in all cases where freedmen are parties to the suit, or where a crime is alleged to have been committed by a white person upon the person or property of a freedman. But it does not give them the power to testify in cases in which only white persons are concerned. All the negro testimony bills which I have seen, passed by the legislatures of the reconstructed States under gentle pressure from Washington, are marked by this singular inconsistency. If the negro competent witness in cases in which his own or his fellow's interests are involved, he is certainly a competent witness in cases involving only the interests of white persons. He is permitted to give evidence when there may exist a temptation for him to swear falsely, and not when there is no such temptation. By the enactment of such laws the whites are in reality legislating against themselves. Even Governor Humphreys late Rebel general, but now the reconstructed executive of the "loyal" State of Mississippi, elected for his services in the Confederate cause in his message to this same legislature, favoring the admission of negroes into the courts as an indispensable step towards ridding the State of the military power, and of "that black incubus, the Freedman's Bureau," made this suggestive statement:

"There are few men living in the South who have not known many white criminals to go unwhipt of justice' because negro testimony was not permitted in the courts."

The act "To confer Civil Rights on the Freedmen," proceeds to make the following provisions, which look much more like wrongs: "That every freedman, free negro, and mulatto shall, on the second Monday of January, one thousand eight

hundred and sixty-six, and annually thereafter, have a lawful home or employment," (of course on any terms that may be offered him,)" and shall have written evidence thereof, as follows, to wit: If living in any incorporated city, town, or village, a license from the Mayor thereof; and if living outside of any incorporated city, town, or village, from the member of the Board of Police of his beat, authorizing him or her to do irregular and job work, or a written contract, as provided in section sixth of this act; which licenses may be revoked for cause, at any time, by the authority granting the same."

Section sixth enacts: "That all contracts for labor made with freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes, for a longer period than one month, shall be in writing and in duplicate;

and said contracts shall be taken and held as entire contracts; and if the laborer shall quit the service of the employer before expiration of his term of service, without good cause, he shall forfeit his wages for that year up to the time of quitting." But who is to be the judge with regard to the "good cause?" The white man, of course, and not the negro.

"Section 7. Be it further enacted, That every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto, who shall have quit the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his or her term of service."

Section ninth provides that if any person "shall knowingly employ any such deserting freedman, free negro, or mulatto, or shall knowingly give or sell to any such deserting freedman, free negro, or mulatto any food, raiment, or other thing, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction, shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars, and not more than two hundred dollars and the costs.”

These extracts which I have made verbatim from an authorized copy of the recent State laws, with only such abridgments as were necessary to compress them within reasonable limits - show plainly enough what ideas prevail in the late Slave States on the subject of free labor. The design of all such enactments is simply to place both the labor and the

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laborer in the power of the employer, and to reorganize slavery under a new name. The fact that they are practically set aside and annulled by the military power and the. Freedmen's Bureau, does not set aside or annul the spirit which dictated them. This still animates the people of the South; and I was often plainly told that as soon as the States were fully restored to their rights, just such laws as these would certainly be put in force. I remarked to a Mississippi planter, "Do you not think it was unwise for your Legislature to pass such a code of laws?" "Yes, it was unwise, at this time," he replied, not understanding the scope of my question. "We showed our hand too soon. We ought to have waited till the troops were withdrawn, and our representatives admitted to Congress; then we could have had everything our own way.

Since the admission of negro testimony in the civil courts of the State, the freedmen's courts had been discontinued, — greatly to the disadvantage of the colored race. The civil courts could hardly be induced to give the negro's cause a hearing. There were some exceptions; and at Vicksburg I found a judge who seemed inclined to administer justice without regard to the prejudice against color. This was Judge Yerger, an original Union man, one of the seven (against seventy-eight) who voted No, on the adoption of the ordinance of secession in the Convention of 1861; the same who, when asked by a member what title should be given to that act, replied, “Call it An Ordinance for the Abolition of Slavery and the Desolation of the South."

Yerger was the President of the new Convention that reconstructed the State. That Convention was animated by a very different temper from that shown by the new Legislature. The Convention was composed of the best men in Mississippi, who went prepared to do what the Government at Washington had a right to expect of rebellious States returning to their allegiance; the Legislature was made up of a different class, elected after the people of the South had been encouraged in their animosity and arrogance by the discovery that treason was not to be punished, nor made particularly odious. The Convention was