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 reënacted against freedmen all the penal and criminal laws that had applied to slaves. It revived, in short, the black code of ante bellum times.
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.[[486]]
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 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 1 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.[[487]]
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.[[488]] 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.[[489]] 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 absurdly accounted for. In the latter class of explanations may be included the notion that the people of the South were exasperated by the interference of Congress, that body, as already mentioned, not having convened till after the passage of the obnoxious laws. On the other hand, it was not generally known, even in Mississippi, that the President in the work of reorganization had resolved to ignore the coördinate political branch of Government; he had, indeed, fairly signified to Governor Sharkey the position that he intended to assume, but his communication to that official, which was never designed for publication, was not immediately circulated through the State; the knowledge, therefore, that the Executive had concluded to oppose the policy of Congress could not have been a factor in disturbing the brief repose of the seceding States, and we must seek elsewhere for the cause.
In many of the insurgent commonwealths rebellion had involved almost every citizen in the guilt of treason, almost every estate in the liability to confiscation. The President and his advisers hoped by a generous distribution of pardons to win the esteem and confidence of this numerous and influential class, and to leave to “Radical” members of Congress the ungrateful office of punishment. This policy contributed to awaken the undaunted spirit of the South, and was, no doubt, an element in unsettling the conditions that prevailed after the surrender. Northern magnanimity, which was content to regard the defeat of secession as sufficient discipline for the rebellious States, and the attitude of the Democratic party were also important influences in misleading the South. More responsible for the reaction, however, than any of these was the unsatisfactory administration of the Freedmen’s Bureau. The testimony of General Grant can be cited to prove that, while accomplishing much that was desirable, this institution was retarding somewhat the progress of reconstruction. In a hurried tour of the late Confederate States he had observed that it was not conducted with good judgment or economy, and remarked in his report to the President that “the belief widely spread among the freedmen of the Southern States, that the lands of their former owners will, at least in part, be divided among them, has come from the agents of this bureau. This belief is seriously interfering with the willingness of the freedmen to make contracts for the coming year.... Many, perhaps the majority, of the agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau advise the freedmen that by their own industry they must expect to live. To this end they endeavor to secure employment for them, and to see that both contracting parties comply with their engagements. In some instances, I am sorry to say, the freedman’s mind does not seem to be disabused of the idea that a freedman has the right to live without care or provision for the future. The effect of the belief in division of lands is idleness and accumulation in camps, towns, and cities.”[[490]]