STATES REPEALING LAWS AGAINST INTERMARRIAGE
Only five States that once had laws against miscegenation have repealed them since 1865. New Mexico,[[196]] in 1866, Rhode Island,[[197]] in 1881, and Maine,[[198]] in 1883, repealed their laws against intermarriage outright. A statute of Michigan[[199]] in 1883 provided that all marriages theretofore contracted between white persons and those wholly or in part of African descent should be valid and effectual and the offspring legitimate, but it said nothing about marriages contracted in the future. Professor Frederick J. Stimson[[200]] has apparently interpreted the statute to apply to marriages in the future as well as to those already contracted. Finally, Ohio[[201]] in 1887 repealed its law of 1877, providing for the punishment of persons of “pure white blood” who intermarry or have carnal intercourse with any Negro or person having a distinct and visible admixture of African blood.