From some occupations Negroes were wholly excluded; others, they were permitted to engage in, only after obtaining licenses. The Alabama Code[[78]] of 1867 provided that no free Negro should be licensed to keep a tavern or to sell vinous or spirituous liquors. There had been a statute of the same State which declared that a free Negro should not be employed to sell or to assist in the sale of drugs or medicine, under a penalty of one hundred dollars, but this had been repealed in 1866.[[79]]
In South Carolina,[[80]] it was unlawful for a Negro either to own a distillery of spirituous liquors or any establishment where they were sold. The violation of this law was a misdemeanor punishable by fine, corporal punishment or hard labor. The law of this State[[81]] went still further by enacting that no person of color should pursue or practice the art, trade, or business of an artisan, mechanic, or shopkeeper, “or any other trade, employment, or business (besides that of husbandry, or that of a servant under contract for service or labor) on his own account and for his own benefit, or in partnership with a white person, or as agent or servant of any person” until he should have obtained a license. This license was good for one year only. Before granting the license the judge had to be satisfied of the skill, fitness, and good moral character of the applicant. If the latter wished to be a shopkeeper or peddler, the annual license fee was one hundred dollars; if a mechanic, artisan, or a member of any other trade, ten dollars. The judge might revoke the license upon a complaint made to him. Negroes could not practice any mechanical art or trade without showing either that they had served their term of apprenticeship or were then practicing the art or trade. For violation of this rule, the Negro had to pay a fine of double the amount of the license, one-half to go to the informer.
In some States, there was a limitation upon the right of Negroes to hold land as tenants. A statute of Mississippi[[82]] in 1865 gave them the right to sue and be sued, to hold property, etc., but declared that the provisions of the statute should not be construed to allow any freeman, free Negro, or mulatto to rent or lease any lands, except in incorporated towns or cities in which places the corporate authorities should control the same. The same statute required every freeman, free Negro, or mulatto to have on January 1, 1866, and annually thereafter, a lawful home and employment with written evidence thereof. If living in an incorporated town, he must have a license from the mayor, authorizing him to do irregular job work—that is, if he was not under some written contract for service; if living outside such a town, he must have a similar license from a member of the board of police of his precinct.
Tennessee,[[83]] on the other hand, went to the length of expressly throwing open all trades to Negroes who complied with the license laws which were applicable to whites and blacks alike.
SALE OF FIREARMS AND LIQUOR TO NEGROES
A fruitful subject of legislation was that relative to the sale of firearms to Negroes. On January 15, 1866, the legislature of Florida[[84]] enacted a law declaring that it was unlawful for a Negro to own, use, or keep in his possession or control “any bowie-knife, dirk, sword, firearms or ammunition of any kind” unless he had obtained a license from the probate judge of the county. To get the license, he had to present the certificate of two respectable citizens of the county as to the peaceful and orderly character of the applicant. The violation of this statute was a misdemeanor punishable by the forfeiture to the use of the informer of such firearms and ammunition and by standing in a pillory one hour or by being whipped not over thirty-nine stripes.
In Mississippi[[85]] the law was that any freedman, free Negro, or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States nor having a specified license, who should keep or carry firearms of any kind or any ammunition, dirk, or bowie-knife should be punished by a fine of not over ten dollars, and all such arms, etc., should be forfeited to the informer. The law further provided that, if any white person lent or gave a freedman, free Negro, or mulatto any firearms, ammunition, dirk, or bowie-knife, such white person should be fined not over fifty dollars, or imprisoned not over thirty days. South Carolina[[86]] did allow a Negro who was the owner of a farm, to keep a “shot-gun or rifle, such as is ordinarily used in hunting, but not a pistol, musket, or other firearm or weapon appropriate for purposes of war.”
It has been seen that some States forbade Negroes to make or sell intoxicating liquor. Others went a step further and made it unlawful to sell liquor to Negroes. It is worth noting that one of the early acts of the legislature of Alabama[[87]] was to repeal such a law. But Kentucky[[88]] forbade a coffee-house keeper to sell liquor to free Negroes under penalty of a bond of five hundred dollars. Mississippi[[89]] made it an offence, punishable by a fine of not over fifty dollars or imprisonment for not more than thirty days, for a white man to sell, give, or lend a Negro any intoxicating liquors, except that a master, mistress, or employer might give him spirituous liquors, but not in quantities sufficient to produce intoxication.
These laws against the sale of firearms and liquor to Negroes probably grew out of a fear by the white people of a Negro uprising, such as had occurred during slavery. The South was in such a turmoil immediately after the War that stringent precautionary measures were considered necessary. These statutes have analogies in the present laws of the Western States against the sale of firearms and liquor to Indians. The law of Arizona[[90]] declares that anyone who sells or gives intoxicating liquor to an Indian is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be punished by a fine of between one hundred and three hundred dollars or imprisoned between one and six months, or both. The sale or gift or repair of firearms was added in 1883.[[91]] Idaho[[92]] has a law very much the same, making the fine, however, not over five hundred dollars or the term of imprisonment not over six months, or both. Dakota Territory,[[93]] in 1865, made it a misdemeanor to sell or give liquor to Indians. Nebraska,[[94]] in 1881, made it an offence punishable by a fine of fifty dollars to sell liquor to them, and in 1891 made it a felony to sell or give liquor to any Indian not a citizen, attaching a fine of not over one thousand dollars or imprisonment in the penitentiary between two and five years. New Mexico[[95]] makes the punishment a fine between twenty and one hundred dollars or imprisonment not over three months. Utah[[96]] makes the punishment a fine between ten and one hundred dollars. The law of Oregon[[97]] made it lawful for every white male citizen of the age of sixteen to keep and carry certain arms, impliedly denying that right to other races. Washington[[98]] made the punishment for selling or giving liquor to Indians a fine of between twenty-five and one hundred dollars. As late as 1903 one finds in the revised statutes of Maine[[99]] a provision that one who sells or gives to an Indian intoxicating liquors forfeits not less than five nor more than twenty dollars, one-half to complainant. It must be clear that the foregoing laws were not passed solely for the moral uplift of the Indian, but quite as much as a protection to white people from drunken Indians. A similar motive must have actuated the Southern States in enacting the laws of 1865–1868, and it has been, at least, one incentive for the present prohibition legislation in the South.