alleged employer, or otherwise disposed of as shall be right and just, and the decision of the county court shall be final.

Sec. 8. . . . That upon affidavit made by the employer of any freedman, free negro or mulatto, or other credible person, before any justice of the peace or member of the board of police, that any freedman. free negro or mulatto, legally employed by said employer, has illegally deserted said employment, such justice of the peace or member of the board of police, shall issue his warrant or warrants, returnable before himself, or other such officer, directed to any sheriff, constable or special deputy, commanding him to arrest said deserter and return him or her to said employer, and the like proceedings shall be had as provided in the preceding section; and it shall be lawful for any officer to whom such warrant shall be directed to execute said warrant in any county of this State, and that said warrant may be transmitted without indorsement to any like officer of another county, to be executed and returned as aforesaid, and the said employer shall pay the cost of said warrants and arrest and return, which shall be set off for so much against the wages of said deserter. Sec. 9. That if any person shall persuade or attempt to persuade, entice or cause any freedman, free negro or mulatto, to desert from the legal employment of any person, before the expiration of his or her term of service, or 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, and if said fine and costs shall not be immediately paid, the court shall sentence said convict to not exceeding two months' imprisonment in the county jail, and he or she shall moreover be liable to the party injured in damages: Provided, if any person shall, or shall attempt to persuade, entice, or cause any freedman, free negro or mulatto, to desert from any legal employment of any person with the view to employ said freedman, free negro or mulatto, without the limits of this State, such person, on conviction, shall be fined not less than fifty dollars and not more than five hundred dollars and costs, and if said fine and costs shall not be immediately paid, the court shall sentence said convict to not exceeding six months' imprisonment in the county jail.

This arbitrary and cruel act, wholly inconsistent with a state of personal freedom, by forbidding the lease to freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes of either lands or tenements outside of cities, not only made of the emancipated slaves a landless and homeless class, but deprived them of all hope of rising out of that condition. On the second Monday of

January, 1866, less than two months after the passage of this act, and annually thereafter, they were required to have a lawful home or employment, and to possess written evidence thereof. This requirement extended to the doing of even irregular and job work, and a written contract for all labor for a longer period than one month. If the laborer, without good cause, left the service of his employer before the expiration of his term, he forfeited all wages for that year up to the time of quitting. As the freedmen were wholly without representation in the State judiciary, the master class could in every instance determine the sufficiency of the cause. The intermarriage of the races was made a felony, and the white or the black person convicted of that crime was to be confined in the State penitentiary for life.1 Southern whites had no objection to the personal attendance, even in first-class railway coaches, of colored servants, but as other than a servant, the freedman was considered exceedingly obnoxious, and this sentiment was enacted immediately before either of the statutes mentioned, into a law which excluded negroes from riding in cars of the first class.2

There was some apprehension lest this and similar legislation would lead to bloody outbreaks. The colored race generally was growing distrustful and discontented. The fear of violence was probably not unconnected with the passage of a law approved November 29, which provided:

Sec. I. . . . That no freedman, free negro or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States Government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk, or bowie-knife, and on conviction thereof, in the county court, shall be punished by fine, not exceeding ten dollars, and pay the costs of such proceedings, and all such arms or ammunition shall be forfeited to the informer, and it shall be the duty of every civil and military officer to arrest any freedman, free

'Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 82-86.

'Ibid., p. 231.

negro or mulatto, found with any such arms or ammunition, and cause him or her to be committed for trial in default of bail.

Sec. 2.

.. That any freedman, free negro or mulatto, committing riots, routs, affrays, trespasses, malicious mischief and cruel treatment to animals, seditious speeches, insulting gestures, language or acts, or assaults on any person, disturbance of peace, exercising the function of a minister of the Gospel without a license from some regularly organized church, vending spirituous or intoxicating liquors, or committing any other misdemeanor, the punishment of which is not specifically provided for by law, shall, upon conviction thereof, in the county court, be fined not less than ten dollars and not more than one hundred dollars, and may be imprisoned, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty days.

Sec. 3. That if any white person shall sell, lend or give to any freedman, free negro or mulatto, any fire-arms, dirk or bowie-knife, or ammunition, or any spirituous or intoxicating liquors, such person or persons so offending, upon conviction thereof, in the county court of his or her county, shall be fined, not exceeding fifty dollars, and may be imprisoned at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty days. . . . Sec. 4. That all the penal and criminal laws now in force in this State, defining offences, and prescribing the mode of punishment for crimes and misdemeanors committed by slaves, free negroes or mulattoes. be and the same are hereby re-enacted, and declared to be in full force and effect, against freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes, except so far as the mode and manner of trial and punishment have been changed or altered by law.

Sec. 5. That if any freedman, free negro or mulatto, convicted of any of the misdemeanors provided against in this act, shall fail or refuse, for the space of five days after conviction, to pay the fine and costs imposed, such person shall be hired out by the sheriff or other officer, at public outcry, to any white person who will pay said fine and all costs, and take such convict for the shortest time.1

Though the General Government was solemnly pledged to guarantee the entire freedom of the negro, he was completely disarmed by these statutes, which were to be administered by men who had been but recently serving the Confederate cause. The purpose of the last measure is rendered clear by Section 4, which reenacted against freedmen all the penal and criminal laws that had applied to slaves. It revived, in short, the black code of ante helium times.

1Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 165-167.

Persons convicted of vagrancy, under an amendatory act, approved November 24, 1865, were subject to a fine not exceeding one hundred dollars and costs, besides a maximum imprisonment of ten days. The first section, which defined who were vagrants, was general in its application. The provisions especially affecting freedmen were the following:

Sec. 2. ... That all freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in this State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together either in the day or night time, and all white persons so assembling with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freedwoman, free negro or mulatto, shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined in the sum of not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro or mulatto, fifty dollars, and a white man two hundred dollars, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the free negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months.

Sec. 5. . . That all fines and forfeitures collected under the provisions of this act shall be paid into the county treasury for general county purposes, and in case any freedman, free negro or mulatto, shall fail for five days after the imposition of any fine or forfeiture upon him or her for violation of any of the provisions of this act, 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, free negro or mulatto, to any persons who will, for the shortest period of service, pay said fine or forfeiture and all costs: Provided, a preference shall be given to the employer, if there be one, in which case the employer shall be entitled to deduct and retain the amount so paid from the wages of such freedman, free negro or mulatto, then due or to become due; and in case such freedman, free negro or mulatto cannot be hired out, he or she may be dealt with as a pauper.1

No extended knowledge of human affairs is necessary to perceive that, by a rigorous enforcement of these laws, the great mass of freedmen could be easily restored to a state of practical servitude during the season when their labor was 'Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 90-93.

desirable, and that for the remainder of the year their condition would be little better than that of the pauper. That the two races were regarded as equal before the law will scarcely be contended. An act approved December I made it a misdemeanor in certain cases for either a white or a black man to hunt hogs or other stock upon any lands other than his own; the white man was liable, on conviction, to a fine of from $100 to $500, or imprisonment from one to three months in the county jail, or both, at the discretion of the court. For the same offence no imprisonment was provided in the case of freedmen, and the fine was fixed between $10 and $20. The latter, however, could be hired at public outcry to the lowest bidder who would pay the fine and cost. The employer, it was provided, was to have the preference in hiring.1

The Legislature first to meet under the reformed government not only expressed for the people of Mississippi no profound regret for resisting the Federal authority, but left no doubt in what estimation it held those who fought for Southern independence by releasing ex-Confederate soldiers from indictments for misdemeanors committed before the war.2 In perfect harmony with the spirit of this act of oblivion was one which changed the name of Jones County to that of Davis, and the name of Ellisville in the same county to Leesburg. This, it should be observed, was only three days before the meeting of Congress.

This legislation, by no means the most severe enacted under the new governments, marks in Southern sentiment a reaction no less unexpected than the complete and almost instantaneous submission following the surrender of Johnston. The sudden change in opinion has been ingeniously and even

'Laws of Mississippi, 1865, pp. 199-200.

'Ibid., pp. 210-211.

'Ibid., p. 240.