nst
them, they would have proceeded precisely as they did. They treated
the negro, according to a vicious phrase which had at one time wide
currency, "as possessing no rights which a white man was bound to
respect." Assent to the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution by
the Southern States was but a gross deception as long as they
accompanied it with legislation which practically deprived the negro of
every trace of liberty. That which was no offense in a white man was
made a misdemeanor, a heinous crime, if committed by a negro. Both in
the civil and criminal code his treatment was different from that to
which the white man was subjected. He was compelled to work under a
series of labor laws applicable only to his own race. The laws of
vagrancy were so changed as, in many of their provisions, to apply only
to him, and under their operation all freedom of movement and transit
was denied. The liberty to sell his time at a fair market rate was
destroyed by the interposition of apprentice laws. Avenues of
usefulness and skill in which he might specially excel were closed
against him lest he should compete with white men. In short his
liberty in all directions was so curtailed that it was a bitter mockery
to refer to him in the statutes as a "freedman." The truth was, that
his liberty was merely of form and not of fact, and the slavery which
was abolished by the organic law of a Nation was now to be revived by
the enactments of a State.

Some of these enactments were peculiarly offensive, not to say
atrocious. In Alabama, which might indeed serve as an example for the
other rebellious States, "stubborn or refractory servants" and
"servants who loiter away their time" were declared by law to be
"vagrants," and might be brought before a justice of the peace and
fined fifty dollars; and in default of payment they might be "hired
out," on three days' notice by public outcry, for the period of "six
months." No fair man could fail to see that the whole effect, and
presumably the direct intent, of this law was to reduce the helpless
negro to slavery for half the year--a punishment that could be
repeated whenever desired, a punishment sure to be desired for that
portion of each recurring year when his labor was specially valuable
in connection with the cotton crop, while for the remainder of the
time he might shift for himself. By this detestable process the
"master" had the labor of the "servant" for a mere pittan