Sec. 7.... 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 without good cause, and said officer and person shall be entitled to receive for arresting and carrying back every deserting employee aforesaid, the sum of five dollars, and ten cents per mile from the place of arrest to the place of delivery, and the same shall be paid by the employer, and held as a set-off for so much against the wages of said deserting employee: Provided, that said arrested party after being so returned may appeal to a justice of the peace or member of the board of the police of the county, who on notice to the alleged employer, shall try summarily whether said appellant is legally employed by the alleged employer and has good cause to quit said employer; either party shall have the right of appeal to the county court, pending which the alleged deserter shall be remanded to the 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.[[483]] 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.[[484]]

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. 1.... 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 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.[[485]]