Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

The ingenuity of the Alabama legislators in contriving schemes to re-enslave the negroes was not exhausted by the odious and comprehensive statutes already cited. They passed an Act to incorporate the city of Mobile, substituting a new charter for the old one. The city had suffered much from the suspension and decay of trade during the war, and it was in great need of labor to make repairs to streets, culverts, sewers, wharves, and all other public property. By the new charter, the mayor, aldermen, and common council were empowered "to cause all vagrants," . . . "all such as have no visible means of support," . . . "all who can show no reasonable cause of employment or business in the city," . . . "all who have no fixed residence or cannot give a good account of themselves," . . . "or are loitering in or about tippling-houses," "to give security for their good behavior for a reasonable time and to indemnify the city against any charge for their support, and in case of their inability or refusal to give such security, to cause them to be confined to labor for a limited time, not exceeding six calendar months, which said labor shall be designated by the said mayor, aldermen, and common council, for the benefit of said city."

It will be observed even by the least intelligent that the charge made in this city ordinance was, in substance, the poverty of the classes quoted—a poverty which was of course the inevitable result of slavery. To make the punishment for no crime effective, the city government was empowered "to appoint a person or persons to take those sentenced to labor from their place of confinement to the place appointed for their working, and to watch them while at labor and return them before sundown to their place of confinement; and, if they shall be found afterwards offending, such security may again be required, and for want thereof the like proceeding may again be had from time to time, as often as may be necessary." The plain meaning of all this was, that these helpless and ignorant men, having been robbed all their lives of the fruit of their labor by slavery, and being necessarily and in consequence poor, must be punished for it by being robbed again of all they had honestly earned. If they stubbornly continued in their poverty, the like proceeding (of depriving them of the fruits of their labor) "may again be had from time to time, as often as may be necessary." It would, of course, be found "necessary" just as long as the city of Mobile was in need of their labor without paying for it.

It has been abundantly substantiated, by impartial evidence, that when these grievous outrages were committed under the forms of law, by the joint authority of the Alabama Legislature and the city government of Mobile, the labor of thousands of willing men could be hired for the low wages of twenty-five cents per day, with an allowance of a peck of corn-meal and four pounds of bacon for each man per week. It does not change the character of the crime against these humble laborers, but it certainly enhances its degree that the law-makers of Alabama preferred an oppressive fraud to the honest payment of a consideration so small as to be almost nominal. A man must be in abject poverty when he is willing to work an entire week for a sum usually accorded in the Norther States for the labor of one day. But only a community blind to public justice and to public decency as well, could enact a law that in effect declares the poverty of the laborer to be a crime, in consideration of which he shall be deprived of the beggarly mite for which he is willing to give the sweat of his face.

Apparently fearing that the operations of the law already referred to would not secure a sufficient number of laborers for the work required in the city, the law-makers of Alabama authorized the municipal government of Mobile to "restrain and prohibit the nightly and other meetings or disorderly assemblies of all persons, and to punish for such offenses by affixing penalties not exceeding fifty dollars for any one offense; and in case of the inability of any such person to pay and satisfy said fine or penalty and the cost thereof, to sentence such person to labor for said city for such reasonable time, not exceeding six calendar months, for any one offense, as may be deemed equivalent to such penalty and costs, which labor shall be such as may be designated by the mayor, aldermen, and common council of the city."

Power was thus given to consider any evening meeting of colored persons a disorderly one, and to arrest all who were participating in it. Nothing was more natural than that the negroes, with their social and even gregarious habits, should, in their new estate of freedom, be disposed to assemble for the purpose of considering their own interests and their future prospects. It is eminently to the discredit of the State of Alabama and of the city of Mobile that so innocent a purpose should be thwarted, perverted, made criminal and punished.

The fact will not escape attention that in these enactments the words "master," "mistress," and "servant" are constantly used, and that under the operation of the laws a form of servitude was re-established, more heartless and more cruel than the slavery which had been abolished. Under the institution of slavery a certain attachment would spring up between the master and his salve, and with it came a certain protection to the latter against want and against suffering in his old age. With all its wrongfulness and its many cruelties, there were ameliorations in the slave system which softened its asperities and enabled vast number of people possessing conscience and character to assume the relation of master. But in the treatment of the colored man, now proposed, there was absolute heartlessness and rank injustice. It was proposed to punish him for no crime, to declare the laborer not worthy of his hire, to leave him friendless and forlorn, without sympathy, without rights under the law, socially an outcast and industrially a serf—a serf who had no connection with the land he tilled, and who had none of the protection which even the Autocracy of Russia extended to the lowliest creature that acknowledged the sovereignty of the Czar.

These laws were framed with malignant cunning so as not to be limited in specific form of words to the negro race, but they were exclusively confined to that race in their execution. It is barely possible that a white vagrant of exceptional depravity might, now and then, be arrested; but the negro was arrested by wholesale on a charge of vagrancy which rested on no foundation except an arbitrary law specially enacted to fit his case. Loitering around tippling-shops, one of the offenses enumerated, was in far larger proportions the habit of white men, but they were left untouched and the negro alone was arrested and punished. In the entire code this deceptive form, of apparently including all persons, was a signally dishonest feature. The makers of the law evidently intended that it should apply to the negro alone, for it was administered on that basis with rigorous severity. The general phrasing was to deceive people outside, and, perhaps, to lull the consciences of some objectors at home, but it made no difference whatever in the execution of the statutes. White men, who had no more visible means of support than the negro, were left undisturbed, while the negro, whose visible means of support were in his strong arms and his willingness to work, was prevented from using the resources conferred upon him by nature, and reduced not merely to the condition of a slave, but subjected to the demoralization of being adjudged a criminal.

In Florida the laws resembled those of Alabama, but were perhaps more severe in their penalties. The "vagrant" there might be hired out for full twelve months, and the money arising from his labor, in case the man had no wife and children, was directed to be applied for "the benefit of the orphans and poor of the county," although the negro had been declared a vagrant because he had no visible means of support, and was therefore quite as much in need of the avails of his labor as those to whom the law diverted them. Among the curious enactments of that State was one to establish and organize a criminal court for each county, empowered to exercise jurisdiction in the trial of all offenses where the punishment did not affect the life of the offender. It is obvious that the law was originated mainly for the punishment of negroes; and to expedite its work it was enacted that "in the proceedings of said court, no presentment, indictment, or written pleading shall be required, but it shall be sufficient to put the party accused upon his or her trial, that the offense and facts are plainly set forth with reasonable certainty in the warrant of arrest." It was further provided that when fines were imposed and the party was unable to pay them, "the county commissioner may hire out, at public outcry, the said party to any person who will take him or her for the shortest time, and pay the fine imposed and the cost of prosecution." The fines thus paid went in the county treasury for the general expenses of the county. The law was thus cunningly contrived to hurry the negro into an odious form of slavery, and to make the earnings which came from his hard labor pay the public expenses, which were legitimately chargeable upon the property of the county.

Accompanying the Act establishing this court was a law prescribing additional penalties for the commission of offenses against the State; and this, like the former, was framed especially for the negro. Its first section provided that where punishment of an offense had hitherto been limited to fine or imprisonment, there should be superadded, as an alternative, the punishment of standing in the pillory for one hour, or whipping, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, on the bare back. The latter punishment was reserved expressly for the negro. It was provided further that it "shall not be lawful for any negro, mulatto, or person of color to own, use, or keep and bowie-knife, dirk, sword, fire-arms, or ammunition of any kind, unless he first obtain a license to do so from the judge of probate for the county in which he is a resident." The judge could issue the license to him only upon recommendation of two respectable white men. Any negro attempting to keep arms of any kind was to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, compelled to "forfeit the arms for the use of the informer, stand in the pillory" (and be pelted by the mob) "for one hour, and then whipped with thirty-nine lashes on the bare back." The same penalty was prescribed for any person of color "who shall intrude himself into any religious or other public assembly of white persons, or into any railroad-car or other vehicle set apart for the accommodation of white persons," and with a mock show of impartiality it was provided that a white man intruding himself into an assembly of negroes, or into a negro-car, might be subjected to a like punishment. This restriction upon the negro was far more severe than that imposed in the days of slavery, when, in many of the Southern States, the gallery of the church was permitted to be freely occupied by them. A peculiarly atrocious discrimination against the negro was included in the sixth section of the law from which these quotations are made. It was provided therein that "if any person or persons shall assault a white female with intent to commit rape, or be accessory thereto, he or they, upon conviction, shall suffer death;" but there was no prohibition and no penalty prescribed for the same crime against a negro woman. She was left unprotected by law against the brutal lust and the violence of white men.

In the laws of South Carolina the oppression and injustice towards the negro were conspicuously marked. The restriction as to fire-arms, which was general to all the States, was especially severe. A negro found with any kind of weapon in his possession was punished by "a fine equal to twice the value of the weapon so unlawfully kept, and, if that be not immediately paid, by corporal punishment." Perhaps the most radically unjust of all the statutes was reserved for this State. The Legislature enacted that "no person of color shall pursue the practice, art, trade, or business of an artisan, mechanic, or shopkeeper, or any other trade or employment besides that of husbandry, or that of a servant under contract for labor, until he shall have obtained a license from the judge of the District Court, which license shall be good for one year only." If the license was granted to the negro to be a shopkeeper or peddler, he was compelled to pay a hundred dollars a year for it; and if he wished to pursue the rudest mechanical calling, he was compelled to pay a license-fee of ten dollars. No such fees were exacted of white men and no such fees were exacted of the free black man during the era of slavery. Every avenue for improvement was closed against him; and in a State which boasted somewhat indelicately of its chivalric dignity, the negro was mercilessly excluded from all chances to better his condition individually, or to improve the character of his race.